Ninja's Creed
by John Sparta
Summary: The Kyubi has found a genetic gift from one of Naruto's ancestors.   Let's open it up and take a look inside shall we?
1. Asleep

Okay, so this is my first attempt at a fic, so please tell me if I do something wrong. This is not one of those "Naruto gets raised by Altair things." This is, I think, completely original. So far as the manner in which I crossed these things over. Assassin's Creed and Naruto belong to their respective owners and I do not lay any claim to them whatsoever. However any new plots, new characters, etc. do belong to me. Enjoy.

* * *

"Speech"

**Kyubi Speech**

_Memories playing out or are being overlayed_

"_Thoughts"; "Or speech when in a memory."_

* * *

Short Prologue:

The vaguaries of the immaterial were not lost on the being contained within its prison. The walls appeared to be meade of stone, water stood in one continuous pool at its feet. The fox was restless. Fur of the deepest red, eyes a blazing orange, its teeth shone as the full moon. Nine elegant tails shifted and flowed behind it as the titan paced the confines of its prison.

The great spirit had awoken in short and muddied intervals since the time of its sealing, and something had changed in the being that it had been bound to in order for that to happen. Roughly one month ago, on the last full moon, the fox had found that it could think clearly for the first time in years. Predictably, it had not been pleased to discover that it was trapped within a human and so began fighting against the confining powers of the seal to no avail, and so fell into slumber again.

This night, when it had awakened, it decided to attempt to discover _why_ it had done so; and what it found was astounding. The spirit and the mortal it was bound to were becoming one. As more of its power had come into contact with the world outside the fox had slowly come back to waking, until the power of these recent full moons had tipped the scales and allowed full thought. And as a prisoner does when confined with nothing to occupy it, it studied its container.

The power of the spirit had begun to change the boy: he was a little tall for his age, a little more heavy. His teeth had sharpened and his bones had become strong. Typical for one who was exposed to such energies.

What was atypical was that the gift of healing, also so common in these gifts of power, had found something in the human's blood that was broken and was trying to heal it. However the Kyubi, long a veteran of curing diseases in mortals as boons, did not recognise the function of this artifact of blood. Never before had it called to be healed in any other human. As the full moon peaked it granted just enough power to the boy's abilities to heal this nameless gift. As the moon began to set, and the fox began to sleep once more, it could feel the new power taking hold.

_**"This,"** _it thought, **_"may prove to be most interesting."_**

In the Village Hidden in the Leaves, also known as Konohagakure No Sato, there were very few things that could truly be said to be odd. This was a village with a good population of ninja, you see; people who through some accident of birth had the ability to harness the excessive amounts of energy that they produced. These Chakra Enabled could gain several abilities: gravity did not impede them, water turned solid under their feet, a landing from forty feet into a layers of dry leaves became both non-lethal and absolutely silent. They could breath fire and alter their appearance with nary more than a thought and a handsign. Sight through walls, superhuman strength and speed, teleportation, even harnessing the power of death itself; these are but a fraction of the _existing_ techniques in this world of ninja.

In a small apartment in the… less than reputable part of town was something that **did** lay outside of the bounds of "normal" even for ninja. Or should it be said: Some_one_?

Tossing and turning in his small, threadbare, dirty bed rested one Uzumaki Naruto, pariah of the village. Most adults became hostile at the very mention of the ten-year-old and children, parroting little monkeys that they are, excluded him from games and slung insults any time that they caught sight of him. You see, the adults had a reason (badly misunderstood though it was) to hate and even fear the young whirlpool.

Ten years ago on his birthday, a demon attacked the village. This demon was no ordinary lets-call-a-perverted-priest level demon either. This force of nature, this Entity, was none other than the Kyubi no Kitsune, the Nine-Tailed Fox of legend. So powerful was it that the havens seemed to shake and the earth tremble at it's passing. And this beast, unkillable and untamable, was sealed into the baby Naruto on the day of his birth. Joined at the soul by Death himself, the young lad had access to all of the raw power of a minor god. Fear and misapprehension from the villagers was somewhat understandable.

But this sealing was not the odd thing about the boy, oh to the contrary! Several other people through the ages had contained demons, maybe not as comprehensively but demon sealing was not a new and original idea. No what made this boy odd were the dreams.

Over the past several nights he had been having flashes, memories not his, interrupting his otherwise peaceful slumber. Sometimes they were beyond pleasant and filled him with bliss, other times they were so violent and brutal that he woke screaming and clawing only to forget the vision moments later. But tonight these dreams, visions, **memories** came to a head.

* * *

He was in a room, sparsely furnished, two beds and a side table between them. A few unexplained jerks in his vision centered him. A handsome man looked back at Naruto, he looked to be in his mid-twenties and very well in shape. Tanned, dark eyes, striking features-

He spoke and, in doing so, Naruto discovered that he _was_ the man and that he was looking in a mirror.

"If you are se-see-seeing this th-en-n then we have f-f-faile-dd. We did not manag-e-e to halt the-(chain of the Gods, thread of the Fates)- and the world hasss been remade once again. We discovered that the world would not be the only thing affected on **{Fragment Corrupted}** but that the entire universe would be changed. Maybe gravity will pull up or humans will be able to walk on walls and ceilings, hell if I know."

Throughout this monologue odd shifts and jerks in movement, as well as periods of muteness filtered through. And seemed to even out, become fixed as time went on.

"We tried our best, but history will tell you that simply trying rarely ggets things done. The world is going to change, and maybe not for the better. But what I _can_ do is focus on this memory, to make it stand out to you: my descendant. There is not much time, but what can be said simply is this: our blood holds our memory; yours, mine, our ancestors. This gift, this curse, will put all of our skill and knowlege in your hands. If it doesn't break you first."

"So," and here the strange man's face grew serious, "you will be receiving sporadic memory transfers-"

_He was lying in bed, watching as overlays of a Tuscan Villa flickered over his vision, replacing the white roof of the truck._

"-You will see as we saw,-"

_He was scanning the market, the hot sun going unnoticed in his search. He __**must**__ get this one. Suddenly, his vision changed. Buildings, stalls, even the sky, their colors were muted. The crowd was now a sea of white, and the guards at the entrance and on the roofs a pulsing red. There! His target, glowing gold, walking towards him._

_He grinned as he readied his blade…_

"-You will gain all of our talents-"

_He was running from the Florentine guards. How was _he_ supposed to know that they wouldn't take well to his killing of the corrupt captain? Oh well, time to have some fun! Up a wall, grab a windowsill, turn, jump back, grasp a pipe crawl to the roof, RUN!_

_He loved the look on the ladies' faces when he did his death-defying thing._

"-You will learn what we knew."

_He was sitting in the courtyard of Masyaf, listening to and studying the blacksmith's trade. If he had to repair his own equipment he might as well know how it was crafted._

_The Old One said that it was forbidden for one who walked the path to know such things but, in his own words: Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted._

_That's why he carried poison with him at all times as well._

"My name is Desmond Miles-"

_My name is Altair Ibn La-Ahad._

_My name Is Ezio Auditore da Firenze._

"-And we are Assassins!"

* * *

A white glow could be seen emanating from a little apartment that night. A glow that went unnoticed by the boy's ANBU guards, they were used to such minor things around the orange-clad tyke. That glow signified the rebirth of a forgotton code. The Assassins had returned.


	2. Breakfast with a side of Zzzz

Author's note: Halo Reach is out so please forgive a hardcore fan. This chapter mainly fills in and sets up some of the background, nothing really important happens here. Up next: the tests!

* * *

An old man sat in a large office. Large, but tasteful: dark woods and earth colors dominated. Smoke curled from a pipe in the elderly man's hand as he read through psychological reports on his next batch of young shinobi. He paused at the rather thick file on one candidate in particular: a blonde who was smiling up out of his photograph. This old man was the Hokage: the leader of the shinobi forces for the entirety of the Land of Fire.

Now, normally the Hokage liked to think of himself as a particularly intelligent shinobi. He had a mastery of most ninjutsu, a talent for taijutsu, a small love affair with genjutsu, and a rudimentary understanding of fuinjutsu. He could set traps, manipulate bureaucracies, turn invisible; he had even learned how the Hatake family ate while wearing facemasks, as closly guarded a secret as there ever was.

So why did he feel that figuring out one soon-to-be fourteen year old was going to be next to impossible?

The hyperactive barely literate blonde had transformed into… well, Hiruzen couldn't quite place his finger on it. Naruto had acted like his old self around the aged Hokage, but the old man couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. So he had set an ANBU tail on the boy about a year ago . The mission report was… odd.

_Mission Objective: Prevent serious harm to and Observe one Uzumaki Naruto_

_Mission Operative: Codename Itachi_

_Mission Timeframe: One Hour_

_Upon exiting the Hokage Tower the subject Uzumaki Naruto quickly entered the general throng outside. The Boy evaded sight for approximately fifteen minutes before visual observation was possible again. During said time, chakra signature tracking techniques were used to track the subject. Note: absolutely no visuals were attainable at this time. The civilians seemed unaware of his presence._

_Once visual confirmation was reestablished Uzumaki was wearing a different outfit. Summary: Orange jumpsuit absent, white hood and cargo pants with combat boots. Twenty minutes later he used what appeared to be an incredibly advanced Henge to purchase several foodstuffs at a local shop (see attached details form). Note: this Henge seems to block the chakra signature of user and was unable to be copied by Sharingan due to a lack of use of handseals._

_Ten minutes to home of subject; he deposited the food in cabinets, refrigerator, etc. Ten minutes to discontinued Training Ground 18 where subject was quoted as saying:_

"_Give the Old Man my regards, Itachi-san."_

_Target then disappeared. A cursory examination of the scene revealed few traces of his passage. Report End._

Yes, it seemed that Naruto still retained his abilities to evade and detect ANBU, but what was worrisome was this new attitude of flying under the radar. This had needed further investigation.

And so he had sent in the teacher, Iruka Umino of the ANBU, last year who had returned a vast field of nothing. Excellent test scores, and quiet in class. If Naruto hadn't told the "Chunin" a month ago that he would talk to the Hokage if he had been asked, the Old Man would have assumed there was nothing to find.

As it was he needed to get down to work. Again. The paperwork was sentient, he was almost sure of it! That, and the Civilian Council was trying to pass some law to provide personal bodyguards. Again.

Time enough to talk to Naruto next week.

* * *

The object of our esteemed Hokage's discomfort over these two years was merrily eating his way through a broiled rabbit and some wild carrots he had gathered the previous night. In the carrots' case, he had purchased them from a kindly old woman on the way back from his afternoon training, after hearing her proclaim that her goods were so fresh that they might as welll still be in the ground. In the rabbit's case it had stopped living roughly five seconds after he spied it eating.

As he chewed, he thought back. How absurd it seemed that merely two years ago he would have been downing ramen, of all things, like the elixir of life! Though, now that he thought about it, ramen had never made him feel like his stomach was about to violently expel itself from his mouth. He quickly inspected his hastily-acquired vegetation and realized that it was not orange or anything close to a carrot's color, but rather pale. Almost like, like…

_He watched as the Master At Arms pulverized the dry root. The man reduced it a fine powder which was then placed in a fine silk bag. A small amount of water was added and a pale liquid filtered out and into a bucket waiting below, nearly full from previous treatments._

"_This," said the Master, "is one of the secrets of our order. I will slowly heat this mixture until the water is driven off. Then we will have one of our most powerful weapons, little Altair, hemlock powder."_

"_Oh damn."_

Naruto waited for the worst. And waited. Then he thanked the gods that he hadn't eaten enough to kill himself inadvertently, and swore to never buy from that witch again.

He was doubly grateful that he seemed to be feeling better quickly because his graduation test was today. That was the whole reason for this impromptu feast.

Naruto smirked. He knew that he could pass the test. Konoha's standards for genin had fallen so low in times of peace that a person who couldn't use chakra could pass! The exam would be a snap; a quick demonstration of taijutsu, a little target practice, some written questions, and then the academy ninjutsu.

He would be out in no time.


	3. Naptime's Over

Just to let everyone know, Akdam has been a terrific sport and allowed me to use some of his ideas in this story. They're not in this chapter, but some of his Ideas will be in this work. Also: A bonus cookie to whomever guesses the two series I have alluded to in this chapter.

* * *

The sun was shining, the air was clear, and the villagers were either glaring at him or ignoring him. Life was good for Uzumaki Naruto.

He had decided to forego his traditional orange jumpsuit in favor of a much less eye-searing ensemble. A white hooded jacket with exterior scroll holsters, cargo pants with oodles of wire in the pockets, a standard shuriken/kunai holster on each leg, and black combat boots. No open-toed POS sandals for him, no sir! If this getup didn't garner a shock from everyone at the academy, he would shave the Haruno's head. Win-win.

As he munched on an apple he may or may not have pilfered from a fruit stand, he thought about what he should do during the upcoming exam. Should he pass with flying colors and show up The Last Uchiha, or just scrape a pass with the bare minimum of effort? Decisions, decisions…

* * *

Naruto was sitting at his desk, calmly stowing away a copy of Icha Icha Paradise: The Gold Standard. He would have continued reading it for research purposes, and enjoying the fact that he was the only student present who could enjoy such literature, but Iruka had just walked in.

Silence ensued.

"Now, as you all know, you are taking your Genin Tests today. This is a time-honored and-"

Naruto zoned out, already anticipating a good fifteen minute break while Iruka waxed eloquent about the most boring part of most shinobi's careers. For the third time this month.

His thoughts and eyes drifted to his classmates, the pale eyed Hyuuga to be precise. A beautiful girl, in Naruto's humble opinion. She was a little shy, but very nice and always volunteered to help him out with his chakra control exercises when he was having trouble.

"_If only she were a bit older."_ Naruto sighed. _"Maybe I should offer to take her to lunch, to say thank you..."_

"Now, proceed to the training grounds. Mizuki-san is going to meet us there with practice kunai and shuriken for your test."

Naruto nodded and the rest of the class shuffled to their feet and cued up to leave the classroom for the practice field.

* * *

"Okay, we're down to two students on the roster for the target test," Said Iruka, "Uchiha Sasuke, you're next."

Sasuke stepped up to the line and took the proffered set of pointy implements from a curiously pink-headed Mizuki.

There was a blur and then ten kunai sank into their respective bull's-eyes, a breath later and the shuriken followed suit.

"Uchiha Sasuke: Perfect Score."

Mizuki recorded the results and then motioned Naruto over.

Iruka called out, "Last up, Uzumaki Naruto."

Naruto took the offered weapons and breathed. He closed his eyes, trying to bring himself to focus.

_A single target stood ten yards away from him. Altair breathed, closed his eyes, focused, and-_

Naruto's eyes shot open and with a grimace sent all ten weapons soaring towards their targets. Six of the kunai hit, two of which marked a bull's-eye. Naruto frowned: there was no way he should have missed that badly. He cocked his arms back and let fly the shuriken, five of which hit and one hit the center.

Mizuki marked down the score and announced, "Uzumaki Naruto: Pass."

* * *

"Final match for the taijutsu portion of the test: Inuzuka Kiba vs. Uzumaki Naruto. You may begin when ready," said Mizuki.

"Hey dobe," said Kiba, "Try not to cry too hard when I mop the floor with ya!"

Naruto opted to settle into an odd stance: his feet positioned as if to sprint at his opponent, but his hands were in an obviously defensive formation with both palms facing down at angles toward each other.

Kiba charged before dropping low to sweep the blonde's feet out from under him. Naruto let the blow connect but held back the bite of the other boy's blow before stepping into the temporarily off balance dog-boy's guard and falling forward. A quick flurry of limbs later saw the blonde with a deep scratch in his cheek, but with his foe on his stomach, arm pinned behind his back, with a kunai at the base of his skull.

Iruka called out, "Winner: Uzumaki Naruto!"

* * *

"Alright class you are halfway through the Genin Exam, all that remains are the written portion and the ninjutsu portion. Mizuki is handing out your tests, and when I start the timer you may begin." Iruka eyed the class to ensure compliance.

"Begin!"

* * *

"And with that done you are one step closer to being a Genin! Well done all of you for finishing on time. Now Kurosaki Yoshimori if you could follow Mizuki and I we will begin your ninjutsu test. When he returns," Iruka called to the class, "He will tell the next one on the list to go to room 2A. Behave yourselves."

Naruto scoffed at that, he always stayed out of trouble. Whether he deserved it or not. He busied himself by continuing his research into Icha Icha and making notes.

When Sasuke called his name he sedately walked to 2A and opened the door into a mostly empty classroom. Mizuki and Iruka were waiting behind a desk.

"Ah, Naruto, you're the last one today," said Mizuki, "Just a quick demonstration an you're through."

Iruka asked him, "Can you perform the Henge and the Bunshin jutsu for us please?"

Naruto smirked, he had put so many hours into that damned Bunshin jutsu that he could probably do it in his sleep!

He put his hands together, made the ram sign, focused, and…

"Bunshin no Jutsu!"

A large cloud surrounded him, which was odd. He hadn't pulled on nearly enough chakra to produce a smokescreen. When the haze cleared there was a bunshin on either side of Naruto, and they looked like hell. All bent out of shape and pale, there was no way he passed that one.

The clones dispersed. Iruka sighed and put down the failure on his clipboard.

"Okay, how about the Henge jutsu Naruto?"

Once again Naruto performed all of the steps to perfection, and once more he fouled up. He now resembled an extremely hefty version of Iruka, minus the scar. Mizuki had had it by that point and started rolling on the ground laughing. While his partner calmed himself down Iruka said "I'm sorry Naruto, but we can't let you pass with this performance."

Naruto nodded, flabbergasted. How had he messed up like that? He _knew_ that he could do those jutsu, so what had fouled him up?

"So, Iruka-sensei, can I go home now or what?" Asked Naruto.

"Yes, you can go. I'm sorry Naruto."

"Hey Iruka, I'll walk him home. Make sure he doesn't get into trouble, y'know?"

"Is that okay with you Naruto?" Iruka asked, silently hoping so. He would like to see Mizuki's wallet drained for ramen for once.

"Yea, sure, this way Mizuki-sensei." Said Naruto, opening the door.

* * *

The dou ate in companionable silence, the blonde helping himself to a serving of yakitori while his white-haired instructor prodded at his serving of yakisoba. Only after eating a portion of his meal Naruto sighed, exasperated.

"I don't get it. I don't know how I messed up those jutsu so badly. Two days ago I could do both perfectly, so what happened?" Mizuki smirked: he knew what had happened. During the blonde's test he had used a variation on the jutsu cancellation technique, and now his hapless former student was ready for the bait.

"Well, maybe you were stressing too much about the test. Stress can make even a veteran flub a jutsu occasionally. It's just bad luck that it happened to you during the academy test." Naruto shrugged while playing with one of his chicken skewers.

"Yea, bad luck for me. Now I've just got the dubious honor of becoming a civilian. The Reserves aren't even an option at this point." Mizuki nodded in feigned sympathy before stopping and forcing himself to appear contemplative.

"It might be that... Nah, never mind." Naruto looked up from his food, interested.

"It might be that, what?" Mizuki grinned misceviously.


	4. Movements in the Shade

_Yea, gonna be switching between this and Chain of Command. For some reason when I'm concentrating very hard on one, I have very nice brainwaves on the other. I've updated Chain as well, no new chapters. Just spelling, word selection, and plot device tweaking._

_Onward!_

* * *

Naruto giggled as he packed his gear away. Now normally the blonde shinobi wouldn't be caught dead giggling, as giggling was a very good indicator of guilt. However, this was a special occasion and no one was watching. He could tell.

Naruto had raced back to his apartment once he had finished his meal with Mizuki. The white-turned-pink-haired man had explained in detail and with many a map and diagram how to steal a "Test Scroll." This scroll was made to look nigh exactly what the Forbidden Scroll was supposed to look like in order to make the test more realistic. Written inside the scroll were to be a few select jutsu and if Naruto could learn just one after retrieving it, he would automatically become a genin. Naruto knew that this would be his last opportunity to become a Konoha shinobi before being delegated to the reserve corps. He also knew the "test" was a complete and utter sham.

The entire time Mizuki had been in the academy for the past year, even during the whole process of giving Naruto the layout of the Hokage's Tower, he had been emitting a glowing red aura to the blonde's "other eyes." Naruto had first noticed his talent about a year previously. He could sense people's intent through the color of their illumination. Red was hostile, blue was friendly, white was indifferent or unaware, and gold was the target of whatever scheme Naruto happened to be mixed up in at the time.

There were several practical applications for his second sight, chief among them being avoiding ANBU. Naruto had no delusions, if the ANBU had ever truly wanted him caught he would be; no matter what kind of hellish chase he may give them. His eyes allowed him, with a little self manipulation, to see them wherever they happened to be hiding whether it be in the crowd or masquerading as a stone. He couldn't see through objects, but then again being able to glimpse red pursuers in a sea of white bystanders and dark buildings was a boon to any ninja.

Naruto debated with himself as to whether or not to bring a nodachi he had found, then dismissed the idea based on the simple fact that he didn't know how to use it. After using the newfound room in his pack to stuff in a few dozen meters of wire, Naruto began to laugh again. Had Mizuki even shown a modicum of effort to help him over the years, Naruto might have overlooked the hostile glow and trusted the instructor. Evidently no one had been kind enough to educate the traitor in the finer arts of deception.

After assuring himself that nigh on twelve smoke bombs would be more than sufficient for any scenario Naruto pulled his black hood low over his face, strapped his pack to his back, and slowly began to make his way to the Hokage Tower.

* * *

It was springtime in Konoha, yet as the sun set an echo of the winter months could be felt. This echo, though, made for pleasantly brisk nights on the streets and the vendors took full advantage of the weekend crowds. Here there were bits of jewelry, there a fast food stand. The night was young and vibrant with the throng.

Nobody noticed the black-clad male weaving through the groups. He kept his head down and kept moving. Occasionally he would appear to stop and speak to one group or another, then move on. Had anyone known that this was Naruto Uzumaki, they would have suspected some form of mischief in the making. It was common knowledge that the container, as he was sometimes named, rarely came into the more populated portions of town, and whenever he did a prank soon followed.

Not tonight though. Tonight's misbehavior was on another level of magnitude entirely. Naruto halted near a group at the edge of Shaded Square, the small park beside the tower. Naruto let his eyes shift and saw multiple red figures arrayed along the rooftops, flitting by windows, and even in the mulling crowds walking along. Naruto moved, knowing that to be caught staring at the tower for any length of time would be to invite a squad to question him. As he trekked closer to the tower, seeming to admire the hedges and flowers along the path, he kept a lookout for just one unwatched spot, one crack in the surveillance.

He found it.

Where the curve of the tower met the two-storied building, technically the north side of said tower, there was a lack of patrols and for good reason. That spot was reasonably well lit by a street light fifteen meters away; a piece of ingenuity stolen from their neighbors in Lightning country, along with the know-how to maintain it. Naruto had his path, now he just needed a bit of time to use it properly.

Naruto blended into a nearby crowd heading down the street, away from the light. The group turned a corner and Naruto joined another group heading the opposite way. This new crowd rounded the corner, completely unaware of the blonde in their midst. About two-thirds of the way to the light the leader of the group decided that they should head off towards a nearby eatery and slowly began leading his flock towards the smell of soy and oil. Naruto ditched the group and sat on a bench, waiting for another to provide the cover he needed. He waited next to two elderly folks for only a few minutes before such an opportunity came along.

Naruto took it.

Within a few seconds his latest cover was mere feet away from the lamp. Naruto moved to the head of the pack, and then swiftly ducked near the access panel, slid it off, deftly twisted a small explosive note around one of the wires, and primed it. The note was small enough that it would have had trouble blowing through a mid-size pile of paper, but the blonde only needed it to sever a small wire. It would do.

Naruto looked around one last time, took a deep breath, and then waited. Three heartbeats later and his little section of street went dark with a loud "Pop!"

Naruto sprinted towards the wall of the two-story building, grasping windowsills and drainpipes to make his way up. At one point he had to leap from the building to the tower and back again in order to progress. Eventually though, he found himself hanging off of the balcony of the tower's roof. Naruto lifted himself up just enough to ascertain that there were no guards, then hoisted himself up and crouch-ran to the roof's access door.

Quickly transforming into a nondescript maintenance man, Naruto entered with what seemed to be nothing more than a tool bag and a clipboard. Nodding and smiling to one of the receptionists, he made his way to an old storage room which was part of the previous iteration of the building. The tower had since been redesigned but this room still had an exposed, low-hanging ventilation duct which a now un-transformed Naruto took full advantage of.

The blonde wriggled inside, then began his slow crawl toward the Great Shinobi Library of Konoha. The Great Library was a contribution made by the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi. It allowed registered shinobi to research any non-clan related techniques Konoha had either developed or stolen that weren't classified as forbidden. To research a forbidden technique, one needed to have permission from the Hokage himself to see the Scroll of Forbidden Techniques, also known as the Scroll of Seals and the Forbidden Scroll. That the scroll was located in the center of the stacks of paper seemed only to increase its mystique.

Naruto lowered himself into the library on the wire he had brought, attached to a few wooden rods with rubber feet to provide an anchor in the vent above. He reached down, clamped his hand around the central dowel of the scroll, and hoisted himself back up into the vents. He just had one last stop to make on his way out…

Hiruzen Sarutobi sighed, long and low. No matter how old one became, no matter how many times one found themselves in a similar situation, it was _always_ one of the most pleasant sensations to have relieved ones bladder after many hours of needing to use the restroom. He would even wager that Itachi Uchiha, cold and ruthless though the boy turned out, appreciated a good piss. He had left his office about five or six minutes earlier, using the excuse of "stretching his legs" to make his way to the good bathroom on the third floor. Upon his return to his office, the aged Hokage settled into his armchair, reassured himself that no new paperwork had spawned in his absence, and pulled out a little orange book to read.

A sizeable chunk of time passed and Hiruzen had just made it to chapter three, where the young hero had just settled into a nice cozy inn/hot springs owned and operated by a buxom young woman, when something fell out of the middle of the book. The elderly man picked up the scrap of paper, read it, then paled and called for the ANBU. The paper merely said:

_Jiji, Mizuki is a traitor. He's meeting me to gain the Forbidden Scroll tonight, two miles west of the north gate. I'll stall him. Assemble a squad, look for his exfiltration team. -Naruto_

* * *

Naruto arrived at the rendezvous a full hour before the proper meeting and he had plans to make the most of his time. Rifling through his pack, Naruto quickly extracted several blank scrolls and steel inkpots as well as a few brushes. After arranging his supplies, Naruto pulled the large scroll off of his back and began to copy the techniques in the order they were shown. It was time-consuming and laborious because he copied each instruction verbatim, but it would be worth it to gain even a fraction of the knowledge contained within the scroll.

A half-hour later, Naruto had managed to copy five techniques in their entirety. With the time remaining to him, Naruto decided to attempt the last of his stolen jutsu: the shadow clones. Fully solid and sentient, they would be a boon in multiplying his effectiveness against the traitor. Naruto packed away his supplies, strapped the scroll to his back, and began running through the handsigns he had only just read. He flared his chakra, and a translucent image of himself manifested out of the chakra cloud which marked his failure. Naruto dropped the jutsu and tried again.

* * *

Mizuki arrived at the abandoned shack and waited for the blonde brat to show himself. All of his plans, his machinations, and his cunning had led to this. If he could bring the scroll of seals to his employer there would be rewards and privilege aplenty. Ah, speak of the blond meal ticket, there he was now: collapsed inside of the hut. _"Must've burned himself out hard trying to learn from the scroll. What an idiot!"_ Mizuki thought with a grin.

The white-haired traitor pulled a kunai from his vest and made his way slowly toward the exhausted blonde.

* * *

Naruto watched through nearly-shut eyes as Mizuki crept towards him. The blonde wasn't nearly as tired as he appeared, but he still wanted to avoid a direct confrontation; Mizuki was a chunin for a reason. Now was the time to put his plan into action. He sat up and yawned, startling Mizuki.

"Naruto! I didn't know you were awake." Mizuki discretely, or so he thought, slipped the kunai up his sleeve.

"Hmm? Oh, yea; I'm awake. I just got really tired from practicing is all. So, does this mean that I pass?"

Mizuki smiled. "Yes Naruto, I think it does. No one even knows that you have the scroll: there've been no alarms. You've done very well, now hand over the scroll and we'll go get all of your paperwork done."

Naruto had to hand it to the man, he was an excellent liar. As Naruto reached around his back he discreetly palmed a smoke bomb and then cast it at the ground with a flick of his wrist, enveloping the pair in a thick curtain of white. Naruto could hear Mizuki spluttering and coughing from the unexpected smokescreen and took the opportunity to form a shadow clone to take his place. When the smoke cleared the blonde doppelganger stood across the clearing from the traitor, while said traitor was holding a kunai that had been thrown at him. Mizuki scowled. "Oh. So you're not as gullible as you seem, but you really should have taken that opportunity to run, demon brat. You'd have lived a bit longer."

The clone contemplated this for about half of a second, then rushed his former instructor: using his right fist as a feint for a left uppercut. Mizuki easily blocked both blows, then stabbed the blonde in the neck with his captured kunai. An expression of shock and pain was briefly visible on the boy's face before he dissipated into a haze of chakra smoke. Mizuki laughed.

"So, even a child can learn something from the forbidden scroll, eh?" Naruto endeavored to stay perfectly still behind his cover; all he had to do was wait until the Hokage's reinforcements arrived.

"Well, even if you did manage to learn something from it-" There was a sound of rushing wind, and suddenly Mizuki was face to face with the hiding blonde. The traitor finished his thought.

"-there is no way for you to escape." The kunai in Mizuki's hand plunged towards Naruto's chest. Naruto seemed to see the blade move both in real time and in slow motion at once: too fast to dodge, not fast enough to be invisible. Naruto closed his eyes for the last time.

Or so he thought.

Barriers inside the young man snapped: his body flooded with power and his mind filled with a new focus. The blonde's left arm snapped up and deflected Mizuki's own, allowing the boy to take a few steps into the clearing to gain space.

How did he get into the middle of a forest? He couldn't remember a wood that resembled this one anywhere near his home. No matter though: the strange man charged again, swinging his short blade. The youth swung his right arm up and to the side, deflecting the blow once again, and then thrust his left palm towards the man's chest while flicking his fingers. Shock was the only feeling when no crimson blossom unfolded from the man's chest. Instead of collapsing, the adversary backhanded his assailant and caused the blonde to bounce across the ground of the clearing, only just managing to stay on his feet.

The blonde quickly glanced at his left side: there was no blade slung under his arm as there should have been! He rolled his shoulders and bounced on his feet, deducing from the sensations sent back that his throwing knives and short blade had either been lost or stolen, along with his armor. He was unarmed against a very formidable opponent in an area he was completely unfamiliar with. It was time to take drastic action.

The man charged again and this time a hand darted out, grasping the man's forearm. With a short chopping motion, the boy had had broken the man's elbow inward and brought the blade closer to himself. With a twist and a flourish the blade found itself taken from its owner's hand and in the firm grip of its target. Capitalizing on the man's apparent shock and pain the smaller warrior slipped around him and stabbed at the back of his opponent's knees, causing him to kneel. A wrenching motion had the downed man's uninjured arm folded behind his back and the blade at his throat. The blonde used the opportunity to gain information. He asked where the two were.

The man paused in his struggles and began speaking in an alien tongue. The blonde switched languages, trying English, Turkish, and then the language of the Mongols. None of them seemed to be understandable to the man. The victorious opponent decided that he must've somehow been taken to a foreign land in his sleep, maybe drugged, and so knocked the man out to prevent any escape attempt.

As the man fell Naruto felt a wave of exhaustion ripple through him, bringing him to all fours. He noted that Mizuki was bleeding on the ground next to him, then wondered how that had happened. Another wave ripped through him and Naruto fell to the ground, asleep.

* * *

***Drip***

Naruto twitched as a drop of water fell on his cheek. His head was pounding, he was dizzy, a fog filled his mind.

***Drip***

Another minute splash, this time on his nose, making him sneeze as the water entered his nostril. Naruto felt shallow water under his hands. Had he fallen asleep in class and his year mates were pranking him? No, no: the smell was all wrong. The classrooms smelled like new paper and chalk, not dampness and… Metal?

***Drip***

This drop landed on the boy's closed eyelid, prompting him to sit up and wipe it away. As soon as he shifted position, though, a spear of pain drove through his skull. Naruto held his head as the throbbing subsided, wiping his eye clear as he waited. Eventually the pain left, and Naruto blearily opened his eyes.

He was sitting in what appeared to be some sort of abandoned service tunnel or a repurposed cave network. The walls and ceiling were of a dark stone, chisel marks plain to see. Some places were mirror smooth, others were rough to the touch. Pipes ran along the walls and overhead, crossing over and under each other, sometimes diving in and out of the stone. A thin layer of water lay on the floor of the hall, preternaturally still. A faint rush of air could be heard, as though hearing a bellows from a distance.

Naruto slowly stood; relieved when the pain did not manifest, yet confused when he looked down. His motion had not disturbed the water. Naruto shuffled his feet. The water did not move, yet he heard a splashing sound as though it had. His thoughts were disturbed by an ominous voice.

"**Come…"**

Naruto could almost _feel_ that voice resounding through his bones. With no other real options, he followed the voice. Through winding corridors, past doors of metal and stone, the voice guided him through the labyrinthine passages of the waterlogged caverns. Eventually Naruto came upon a set of heavy metal doors. At least thirteen feet high and easily as wide, the door was unblemished.. It was kept shut by a thick sliding bolt.

"**COME."**

Naruto jumped, the voice was much louder now. He could hear the metal door rattle on its hinges. Swallowing his trepidation, Naruto unbolted the door and stepped through.

The room on the other side of the door was massive: the walls were easily a quarter-mile apart and probably more, the ceiling looked to be higher than the Hokage's tower. Across from Naruto, though, was the only feature in the massive space. A great cage made up one of the walls; each bar was dark and wide, the only way to discern them from the inky blackness beyond was to seek out the dull shine of the metal. A small patch of white was located near the center though, and Naruto couldn't puzzle out what it was.

He began walking closer; the water swishing and sloshing under his stride, though still no ripples. The rushing air had become more defined since he had entered the room and had become louder as he approached the cage. It sounded like breathing.

Naruto stopped when he could make out the white spot on the bars.

Where on a normal gate or cage there would be a latch, a lock, a pin, or some other sort of fastening mechanism, there was a simple piece of paper with the kanji for "Seal" written on it. Transfixed by the oddity, Naruto stepped closer.

A massive red eye opened behind the seal.

Naruto yelped and jumped back, this time causing ripples to form on the water. Naruto took no note, though the owner of the eye did.

It chuckled. **"Are you afraid of me, little one?"**

Naruto's knees quaked imperceptibly. Yet more ripples formed.

A titanic set of teeth revealed themselves as the beast grinned. **"I see that you are. It is understandable that you would fear me. Still yourself: I cannot harm you. No more than I could harm myself."**

Naruto let out a shaky breath, then inhaled. He repeated the exercise thrice more before he was calm. As he settled, more of the being in front of him was revealed. Red fur covered a vulpine snout, long ears swept backwards towards a lithe body and nine shimmering and shifting tails, each as long as the Hokage's Tower and as flexible as the finest wire.

Naruto was dazed by the sheer majesty of the creature; he could not help but to ask: "What _are_ you?"

The fox made a chuffing sound in it's throat. **"I have been many things to many people. To some, I am a god. To others, I am a force of nature. A few have known me as a protector and guide. But to your people, to your village, I am known as the **_**Kyubi no Kitsune**_** or else as **_**Kyubi no Yoko**_**. I am the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox."**

Naruto's mind was reeling. This was the monster that had ravaged Konoha? This was the beast that the Fourth Hokage sacrificed himself to kill?

"How-" Naruto's throat went dry. He swallowed and tried again.

"How are you here? We were taught that the Fourth Hokage killed you."

At this the fox outright laughed! It was a chilling thing: nothing that powerful should be able to produce such a _normal_ sound. **"I am afraid that the circumstances of my death have been only slightly exaggerated. The man who fought me nigh on fourteen years ago was **_**mortal**_**. It takes one immortal being to kill another. The most that the ningen could do was to guide the God of Death, the Shinigami, to seal me away. Into you."**

The Kyubi turned both eyes on the blonde, studying him. How would a lesser being process the idea that they contained an entity of such might and nobility? How did a human cope with the fact that they had been touched by a god? How would a child deal with the newly revealed truth of their existence as a sacrifice and a safeguard for a village that would gladly see him dead?

By laughing, apparently.

It started as a small chuckle, little more than a snort, then erupted into full-blown guffaws as the boy placed his hands on his knees. He steadied, then burst into a new fit of merriment; eventually he collapsed into a sitting position, one leg under the other.

The boy took in a deep shuddering breath while raking his hand back through his golden hair in an effort to calm himself. He locked eyes with the fox with his hand still sifting through the freshly-tousled mass. "So, what do you want?"

The Kyubi blinked. Slowly. **"What do you mean?"**

Naruto sighed, then leaned back so one of his hands supported some of his weight, gesturing with the other. "I mean what do you desire? Do you want to conquer the world? Do you want a soul to eat? Do you want me to destroy Konoha? What do you want? I'm going to be stuck with you for a while."

Then Naruto grinned. "Unless you know how to pull us apart without killing us."

The Kyubi blinked again. **"That would be an impressive feat, for I am already dead. As are you."**

Naruto spluttered for a moment, disturbing the water under him, then: "Dead? How can we be dead if we're not in the afterlife? I don't know about you, but Konoha isn't exactly my idea of Amaterasu's Palace."

The demon's fur rippled along its length as it chuckled. **"We are dead in the sense that we are no longer what we were. Whatever I was, and whatever you were going to be, is no more. Instead we are as **_**we**_** are."**

Naruto's brow furrowed. "I don't understand."

"**The Shinigami melded our souls; twined them together in the furnace of his might, then struck them with a blow that forever bound the two. Over time we shall mix and overlap until only one distinct individual remains, stronger than either and gleaming in its newness. Until then, another could look at us and see the remnants of the two that were."**

The blonde was still grappling with the imagery that the fox used to illustrate how he was dead. He tried, and failed, to comprehend several times until the fox gave him an impression of his meaning.

A man gathered red sand from a beach, melted it into metal. He held the cooled mass in a forge, folding the bar and mixing it with the orange ashes of the flame. He polished the metal, smoothing it until it mirrored his face when he looked into its side. Naruto understood.

"So, I am not only myself, but a part of you?"

The fox nodded. **"As I am a part of you. This seal was made to merge us slowly, so as to spare the world the shock of a new being, such as what we will become, coming suddenly into existence. Small spirits alone can cause a mountain to fall; we will be, and are, far more than they."**

Naruto became confused again, an understandable thing when one took his company into account. "Spirits? What are they?"

The fox's eye slimmed. **"A lesson for another day. You quicken. Tell no one that we spoke. We shall again later."**

With that the room blurred, and Naruto felt himself falling.

* * *

The blonde demon container awoke in a familiar office. He was lying on a couch, the room was empty. Portraits of past Hokage adorned the walls, a small library stood in the far corner from the door. Naruto sat up, scanning the rest of the office.

He immediately noticed the aged man sitting behind the large desk just before a wide window. Outside of and below that window lay the skyline of Konoha, lights twinkling in the night as streetlamps illuminated streets and lamps lit homes. Before the window sat an aged man with sun-darkened skin and a pipe with smoke drifting lazily out from under the wide conical hat.

The Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi; known to Naruto for most of his life as "Saru-Jiji". Monkey Gramps.

The old man smiled.

"Ah, Naruto. I was wondering when you'd wake up. Would you mind clearing up what happened tonight?"


	5. Not What it Appeared to be

"Speech."

"_Thought"_

"**Demon Speech."**

_Jutsu Name_

* * *

Naruto sighed as he fell onto his mattress. The Hokage had kept him up until after midnight, very nearly four hours, asking about how Naruto had stolen the scroll, how he had defeated Mizuki, and about the events leading up to Mizuki's approaching Naruto. The details of that last had led to questions about the academy instructors, and then the topic had devolved into a general inquiry about the village's behaviour towards Naruto as a whole.

The Hokage had not been pleased by the blonde's answer. Even now, Naruto felt a shudder run up his spine at the mere memory of the sheer contempt and malice that had been in the Hokage's voice.

_(Flashback)_

"They wouldn't sell you… what, again?"

Naruto shivered as he felt the barely restrained rage in the aged man. With his face shadowed by the wide hat, his eyes were the only thing easily discernable underneath; it truly created a fearsome visage. The nose was in sharp relief, the lower corner of his jaw was lit (made even more severe by the wrinkles visible), and his eyes bored into whatever he chose to settle his gaze upon. Naruto swallowed. "Um, food, mostly. And nice clothes. And… practice weapons… books."

He could feel the old man's rage intensify. A gut feeling told him to mitigate what he had said. "I mean, when I went into stores when I was little, I was loud and obnoxious; remember? I probably raised all kinds of hell for them and disturbed their customers."

Sarutobi's face became less creased with indignation, if only slightly. "Yes; I remember. Did they ever hurt you?"

"_Yes,"_ Naruto thought. "No."

At the old man's stare, Naruto amended himself. "Well, a couple of drunks might have thrown stuff at me once or twice. Nothing too bad."

Sarutobi sighed and took a long drag from his pipe. "Well, at least the villagers aren't complete fools. How are you now; as far as being able to buy supplies?"

_(End Flashback)_

And so Naruto had told the old man how he went shopping in a _henge_ ever since he had learnt it at the academy three years ago; that he went as a female to get discounts from the butchers and the blacksmiths, and as an attractive man when he went to the grocer or the tailors. He almost never bought clothes, always raw cloth to make his own; he had taken a sewing and fashion class as a nondescript woman nigh on a year ago. Shoes were an exception. He had found and tended natural herbs and spices off in the woods around the village, so he didn't need to pay to have good tasting food.

Very nearly all of his secrets, Naruto had laid bare. Save three. His sight, the dreams, and the fox.

Speaking of which…

"_How do I communicate with it?"_ wondered Naruto. _"Do I need to chant, or maybe-"_ A voice interrupted his musings and the youth's train of thought was very nearly scattered and forgotten.

"_**You need no such base methods to speak with me. I am you; you are me. Do not forget this for it is our greatest strength."**_

Naruto sat up in his bed, wincing. He had forgotten how _loud_ the fox was. _"How so?"_

Naruto could almost feel the fox formulating a reply; it astonished him that whatever link they had was growing so quickly!

"_**Do not appease your ego as thus,"**_ the fox chided, _**"it ill becomes us. You hear my thoughts as they form only when we converse; only when I focus on you."**_

Naruto thought for a moment. _"You still didn't answer the question. Why is our link our greatest strength?"_

He could feel the fox's thoughts whirling as it tried to frame its meaning. _**"It is… Difficult to speak this tongue. I am not used to the words."**_

Naruto waited patiently for his answer; the moon was rather lovely and he had time. The image of the white crescent seemed to crystallize the errant thoughts of the demon. _**"We are like wolves: alone strong; together, more so. All things face their death alone, live life essentially alone, but we do not."**_

An image surfaced in Naruto's mind: several foxes surrounded one of the tree deer that were so abundant in the forest; the deer jumped, seeking to escape through the branches, but was foiled by a cunning fox that had climbed the tree while the deer had panicked. Naruto's interpretation of the scene was flipped on its head at the demon's next words. _**"I would have sensed the threat from above for you. You need not only rely on your instinct, you can rely on mine as well."**_

A sense of lethargy welled up from the blonde's stomach, though not his own. _**"I tire. Speaking past this seal, it is… draining. I go to sleep now, but remember this: you can trust what I would see."**_

)*(^)*(

Two days later Naruto was summoned to present himself to the Hokage; the message was delivered by an ANBU with a cat mask. The only reason the young man knew this was because he had caught a glimpse of her on an adjacent roof to his own apartment complex as he picked up the tightly furled scroll on his table. _"Huh. She's good. Only smelt her after she left."_

After his breakfast stew, Naruto washed the dishes by hand and paused on his way out only to place a kunai in each sleeve of his white jacket. He had no reason as to why that felt so integral to his well-being, but he never left his home without doing so; he had felt almost naked the one time he could remember leaving the blades behind.

)*(^)*(

The sun was muted behind a thick bank of grey clouds; this always changed the way that light fell upon Konohagakure. Everything seemed to be lit from all sides, though more brightly on the eastern faces; but the light was not so bright and harsh as to make one squint. There was a distinct odour of rain on the air and a cool breeze made itself known with touches of chill wind upon a brow or shoulder. If one was in the street markets, one would note that the populace was a tad more quiet than was usual, though not in an uncomfortable way for it allowed one to hear the rustling of leaves along the road or the swishing of cherry blossoms brushing against each other above the walls of the Hyuuga House walls. To Naruto, the world outside the Hokage's panoramic window had seemed perfectly serene and beautiful. So why was the old man frowning?

Sarutobi motioned to Naruto, "Have a seat."

He had indicated a chair which sat opposite the aged ninja. Naruto did as he was bade. "I'm sure you're wondering why you are here, so soon after your little altercation with Mizuki-san."

Naruto nodded. The man looked a bit abashed at himself. "It seems that in all of the excitement and haste to expose the depths of his treachery we, and I mean Iruka and myself, forgot one small detail: you would have passed your exam had Mizuki not interfered, yes?"

Again, Naruto nodded; wondering why this was important. "Ah, there is the problem. When it was thought that you had failed another was promoted in your place: Kurosaki Yoshimori. Genin teams in our village are comprised of three genin and one jonin, we needed to balance the roster. In light of your particular circumstances we _could _have had Kurosaki-kun repeat the final semester, but…"

Here, the old man looked positively _sheepish_. "We forgot to make the necessary changes to the listings, and the second portions of the Genin Tests began a few hours ago. He is now officially on Team Seven, which might have been your place. It wouldn't be terribly kind to swap you out now."

Naruto let the news wash over him. He had previously failed the Genin Exam twice due to sabotage, and this third occurrence meant that he couldn't take it again. Most people in his position either remade themselves into samurai, bandits, or often enough became civilians who had a few special tricks up their sleeves.

"Which leaves us with what to do with you;" continued the Hokage, "I would hate to throw away someone who could defeat an opponent several years more experienced and trained, but I cannot show you favouritism and allow you into the academy again. What do you think we should do, eh?"

Naruto thought for but a few moments before a kernel of memory made itself known: he and Mizuki had spoken of the Reserves before the traitor had fed Naruto his little lie. Many of those who couldn't get an apprenticeship or team assignment under a Jonin sensei enlisted in the reserves to continue their careers as ninja. Naruto didn't much like the idea of stalling out at chunin like the reserves were reputed to lead to, but it did give him another idea. "Jiji, what if I trained myself, like I've been doing?"

The old man looked perplexed, so Naruto continued: "I'm sure if you gave me access to the Library and allowed me to go on low-level missions, I could become an asset to you in time. Several people do essentially that in the reserves, let me take my own crack at it."

Sarutobi nodded slowly. "It is an… _unorthodox_ idea, but I think it might work."

He rose from his desk and pulled from a drawer in the wall a hitai-ate, a forehead protector. He walked back across the room to Naruto and said: "This was my first headband. Take it and become a ninja of Konoha; under my command and sworn to the well-being of this village."

Naruto took the headband with reverence. The thing looked brand new, the metal shone and the cloth was smooth and unmarred by tears or stretching. He tied it across his brow. The old man spread his arms wide. "And so I welcome you to the family of shadows, that of the ninja!"

"Ha," laughed the old hokage, "The moment you have awaited for so long has finally arrived. How does it feel?"

Naruto thought for a moment, and an odd scene blurred before his eyes. An old man in black robes, with a face much like the hokage, stood behind a pine desk in a stone-walled study. A large window was behind this master as well; but it was tall rather than wide and it had bands of metal holding smaller, artfully shaped, pieces of glass into shape. The young man looked down at his left arm to admire a bracer which adorned it. He flexed his hand, watching as the scar tissue stretched over the remaining knuckle of his ring finger. "It feels… right. As though I were missing a part of myself and now am not."

The images faded as Sarutobi's voice was heard. "I've never heard it so elegantly put, but many feel as such."

He laughed as Naruto blinked with a confused expression on his face. "Yes, I myself had a similar reaction at the end of my training. Now, on to your privileges and restrictions."

The old man walked back to his desk and began writing out permissions for Naruto to use as he spoke. "You may read any scroll in the Shinobi Library here in the tower; so long as they are marked for genin, and so long as you do not remove them from the premises. You may purchase food from our commissary; as well as maps, basic clothing, and whatever else you may need from our stores. You may select any mission you desire from the mission hall so long as it is a Genin-Level mission constrained within the village. I may increase the difficulty you may undertake as I see fit. Any questions?"

"No, sir."

Sarutobi smiled. "I'll mark training ground eighteen as your designated training ground. You seem to spend enough time there."

Naruto flushed at having been caught in a pattern. "How often am I followed, Jiji?"

The old man grinned and lit his pipe. "Often enough. Now run along; I have paperwork to do."

Naruto nodded and exited the office with the papers the hokage had signed and sealed. As he shut the door he heard an exclamation of: "Requesting bodyguards again! When will they just give up!?"

)*(^)*(

Naruto had immediately turned his permissions papers over to the librarian, the Missions Centre, and the Requisitions offices. Afterward, he had gone back to his apartment and outfitted himself in his ninja garb: light combat boots, black cargo pants, and his white hooded jacket. A shuriken and kunai holster was sewn into the uppermost pockets of either leg of his pants, roughly mid-thigh, and two additional kunai were hidden in his sleeves. He took some of his stored money out from under the floorboards and replaced it with the old man's old Hitai-ate. He placed it reverently next to the goggles someone had left for him on his birthday a few years ago; the first gift he had received from anyone other than the hokage.

)*(^)*(

"You want _what_ mission, again?"

The chunin manning the assignment roster was evidently deaf, or slow. After outfitting himself with a new headband purchased from the requisitions office Naruto had decided to get a mission under his belt. He felt it was best to begin with something easy, and the assignment he chose seemed to be one of the simplest there: find a lost cat named Tora.

"I said that I wanted mission number thirteen. Is there something wrong with that?"

The chunin flicked his gaze to the corners of the room, as though expecting someone to jump out and startle him. "No, it's just that most people wouldn't take this on solo."

Naruto cocked his head, confused. "Well, yes; anyone who's a chunin or jonin have more interesting assignments that village-bound chores, right? Why would they want to do those?"

The man opened his mouth, closed it, then shrugged. He pulled a scroll closer to him and began marking it as 'In Progress.' "Whatever. It's your pain in the ass now."

He handed another scroll over to Naruto. "Get this signed by the owner when you're done and turn it in here so that it can be checked off, and so that we can put the reward in your budget. Got that?"

Naruto nodded as he slipped the scroll into one of his waterproof pockets. As he exited the mission hall he wondered: _"How hard could this possibly be?"_

**Two Hours Later**

"_Kami help that furry devil when I find it."_

Naruto had followed every textbook procedure for tracking: he had located the market in which the target was lat seen, he had sent scouts along the various routes that a cat might have found attractive due to food or other variables, he had even _henged_ into a cat to gain some perspective on his target. Nothing had borne fruit. In desperation Naruto had used his other sight in an attempt to narrow his search. Usually his eyes could identify the path a subject had taken and highlight it with a glowing light. The damn thing had been everywhere_. _Over fences, under them, on windowsills, in apartment buildings, through stalls in the square. He couldn't even pick out the most recent amongst all of the overlapping trails, and since his sight couldn't detect things that were much more than a half-hour old…

"_It must be some sort of ninja cat,"_ thought Naruto, _"or else a demon of some kind. There is no __way__ that some dumb animal is __this__ good! If only I could see from…"_

A clever idea struck Naruto; he quickly ascended a nearby building by means of a fire escape. The apartment was three stories tall and thus loftier than most of its neighbours. Once he had situated himself on the corner nearest the market he activated his other sight and waited. He didn't need to follow the trails, they were too densely tangled for him to make any sense of them, he just needed to identify the source: the point at which a new trail was being laid out. By means of his altitude, he almost missed it. A glowing dot of golden light was meandering from one food stall to the next. Naruto smiled, then dropped. On his way down the side of the building Naruto reached out several times to grasp a windowsill or a bar, not with enough strength to halt his movement but enough to slow his fall so he would not be injured when he hit the ground. Once there, he began to stalk the elusive furball.

**Thirty Minutes Later**

Naruto was so far beyond frustrated that he couldn't even muster the energy to formulate sadistic thoughts about what he would do to the tiny beast when he caught it. If it even caught a glimpse of him following the cat would rush around a corner or through a crowd, almost as though it _knew_.

But Naruto had a plan, oh yes. A sneaky, sneaky plan. At his signal several shadow clones of his would attempt to capture the creature from their hiding places around the marketplace. One enterprising clone had even hidden itself by jumping into a hay cart form the top of a low building just to avoid being spotted.

Naruto pursed his lips. In about three seconds several shoppers and merchants were going to become very upset.

"_Two… One!"_

**Twenty Minutes Later**

Naruto was walking away from the mission hall. He was covered head to toe with scratches, welts, and bruises. After his initial surprise assault had failed spectacularly, one pair of clones had somehow managed to headbutt each other in the groin while lunging after the raging feline, he had overloaded the _Shadow Clone Jutsu _with as much chakra as he could muster. What had followed was what was likely the single most ridiculous chase in which anyone had ever participated: rakes had been stepped on, clothes lines had met throats, and groin-kick-happy mules had gotten involved.

After ten minutes of chase, and five of walking whilst being mauled by claws far too sharp to be natural, Naruto had caught and returned the cat to his overbearing and overweight owner; he had taken great pleasure watching the little devil being squished and manhandled by the gratingly-high-voiced woman. When Naruto had finally returned the scroll to a new handler at the mission hall the reaction had been: "Wow! Only two hours and forty-five minutes! For a first timer, not bad. Your rank,"

And here, the handler turned to examine a listing on the wall. "Is… fifth in speed. Missed out on the top spot by half an hour, better luck next time!"

Naruto stared, incredulously, as the man smiled at him. _"Next time?"_

He shook his head. "Uh-uh, no way. I don't have a sensei. I'm _never _taking that again if it comes up."

"If? What do you mean by 'If?' We get this mission every day, sometimes twice!"

Naruto opened his mouth to protest, closed it, then walked away.

* * *

A week after the disastrous mission with the cat, Naruto had had a thought. Every time he visited the mission hall there were literally stacks upon stacks of mission scrolls. On the few occasions when the chunin manning the desk needed time to find a particular mission scroll Naruto had perused a few, or several, in the meantime. What he had discovered was that several assignments could be counted upon to be in the piles every day: repair work, deliveries, odd jobs, etc. Occasionally an outlier would make it into the genin-level assignments such as farm labour or getting rid of a wild animal.

When Naruto had asked how all of the missions could be completed in a single day the chunin had snorted. "All of these? Completed? Most of these won't be addressed for maybe a week; we only have about ten genin teams active in Konoha, so unless they all take about four or five missions a day we'll always have that D-Pile over there."

That had been the spark for Naruto's idea: if one could, say, split themselves into a virtually numberless contingent and if that same one were to leave enough missions for the rest of the genin squads… Who would complain?

Naruto had begun to take most of the assignments offered from the D-rank desk. Weeding, gardening, repairs; so long as it wasn't the Tora mission he didn't care. He always left around fifteen scrolls for the other genin teams, and so some days for him were less busy than others, but Naruto figured that at his pace he wouldn't need to worry about money with his current arrangements.

With clones doing most of the menial work Naruto was free to take the more interesting assignments; such as killing a wild boar that was worrying a farmer's wife (Naruto had shared a supper made of said hog with said farmers after completion of the task), or special deliveries to notable names in the village. In addition to the more interesting workload Naruto found that he had ample time to take full advantage of the shinobi library and so often took 'training days,' days where he himself completed no assignments and instead bettered himself as a ninja, usually focusing on chakra control exercises.

This had gone on for about three weeks before he was called into the Hokage's office again.

)*(^)*(

"You wanted to see me, Hokage-sama?"

The old man looked up from his desk to find Naruto peering in through one of his open windows. Windows which were located nearly one hundred feet in the air. Outside of which were no railings or any real method for preventing oneself from plummeting to one's splattery death. This was, understandably, some cause for alarm. "Aiiieeeeeeee! NARUTO!"

Naruto flinched, causing Hiruzen to yell again. "What in the name of-! Get in here, NOW!"

Naruto quickly clambered through the window and took a seat across from the old man, abashedly rubbing the back of his head. "So, I take it I should use the front door from now on?"

Hiruzen collapsed into his, admittedly very comfortable and lumbar-supporting, chair with an exasperated air. The elderly man pinched the bridge of his nose before taking out his pipe and lighting it. "Alright then. Before we touch on why I summoned you here: why, and more importantly how, were you outside my window?"

Naruto shrugged. "The ANBU you sent to give me the message said that I should get here as soon as possible. I figured that I could practice my chakra control while I did."

While Naruto had been talking the hokage had had time for a few comforting puffs of tobacco from his pipe. He spoke, and by now his voice had regained its usual gravely nature. "So you've learned wall-walking from the library. What else have you learned?"

Naruto nodded, happiness evident on his face. "Thanks again for letting me use the library. Let's see," Naruto began counting on his fingers, "I've learned a whole slew of D-rank jutsu, mostly camping stuff like a jutsu to light a fire with chakra or one to sink a campsite. One of the better ones that I managed to find was the voice-throwing jutsu."

Hiruzen blinked, making a mental note to begin perusing his library again. "There's a voice-throwing jutsu?"

"Yup. I used it just a few days ago to make a wild boar run headlong into a spike pit. Hmm," Naruto hummed while rubbing his stomach, "pork…"

Hiruzen laughed. "Ha, well I'm glad that you're keeping up with your training as you promised. Now, how about a special mission?"

Naruto calmed, his self-satisfaction replaced with an attentive bearing. The hokage nodded, pleased. "Now, three days ago team seven departed on a standard C-rank body guarding mission for one Shigeru Tazuna. It was expected that all team seven would face would be bandits. However on their second day of travel the team and the client were assaulted by the Oni Kyodai, an infamous pair of nukenin who left Mizugakure. Hatake Kakashi sent word via summons earlier today that we should find the duo on the main route to Wave Country tied to a tree, and to ask for backup. Normally I would send another genin squad, but seeing as the other teams are away on missions I needs must send you. Don't worry," laughed the hokage, "you won't be going alone. Kotetsu and Izumo will accompany you to take in the Demon Brothers. Beyond that though, you will journey to Nami no Kuni, the Land of Waves, and find team seven alone. Questions?"

Naruto's brow had become slightly furrowed over the course of the briefing. "Hokage-sama, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it usual to return to the village when it's discovered that a client lied about the nature of a mission?"

The old man nodded. "Hatake-san wrote that he put whether or not to return up to a vote of his team. They unanimously agreed to continue and to help Nami no Kuni further."

Naruto seethed on the inside. The morons on that team might very well get themselves killed over their selfless decision. Sure Naruto may not have been able to be so callous himself, but he definitely knew that they were risking lives for no added benefit.

"I can see that you're troubled. I should tell you, I allowed the team to continue for two reasons." Naruto looked up from his brooding; the hokage had thought this a _good_ idea?

"The first reason is that if Nami no Kuni is freed, and the bridge Tazuna-san is building completed, then new trade routes will open; trade routes that could greatly benefit Konoha and the Land of Fire as a whole. The second is that, though great adversity might await you, I happen to know that you have an army up your sleeve. Oh come now," laughed the Hokage as Naruto's face took on a look of surprise, "did you really believe that I wouldn't hear of your exploits in the Mission Hall? Izuriro was most disturbed when a single genin began outperforming even veteran squads as far as number of missions in a day."

The Hokage continued to laugh at Naruto's now bashful expression. "Here's your mission scroll. Meet Kotetsu and Izumo at the eastern gate in half an hour. And, Naruto?" Naruto paused at the Hokage's door.

"Come back alive."

Naruto nodded once, then left to prepare.

)*(^)*(

"So Naruto, you all set?"

Due to the speed at which three unburdened shinobi could move the trio had made good time to the site where team seven had left the nukenin brothers. After the chunin had prepped the two hostile but dehydrated shinobi for travel, Kotetsu had asked the question.

Naruto nodded. "I should be alright. The worst thing that'll happen is that I'll get lost."

One of the demon brothers laughed. "No," he coughed, "the worst that can happen is that you _won't_."

The man let out a few wheezing laughs before passing out. Kotetsu shook his head. "I swear, these enemy nin get dumber and dumber every time I see them."

Izumo looked sideways at his partner, disbelieving. "You? See an enemy nin? We guard the west gate all day long; we have for two years! We're lucky if we see our _own_ nin!"

Kotestu turned around primly with his arms crossed. "So far as you know; who's to say I haven't been taking the odd mission on the side?"

"Oh, you are so full of shit!"

Naruto laughed long and hard as he walked away from the two, waving over his shoulder as he did so.

)*(^)*(

Naruto was getting very, _very_ tired of mist. From what he had been told his destination was a mid-sized village near the bridge site, not even an hour's walking distance between the two for a civilian. After Naruto had made landfall on the island which made up the entirety of Nami no Kuni, he had gotten good and lost in a forest. A forest! _"I _live_ in a forest, for Kami's sake! This should be the last place I'm able to lose my bearings!"_

Naruto knew he couldn't be far behind team seven, maybe an hour at most; they had had to slow their travel to accommodate Tazuna. Naruto calmed himself, stilled. Getting agitated wouldn't help him. Minutes passed and, ever so faintly, he heard the clanging of metal. _"A blacksmith! That means that the town is nearby!"_

Naruto began to run through the forest with new vigour in his step, but slowed as he realised that the clanging he heard was less like a hammer and anvil and more akin to crossing blades. Cautiously, Naruto pushed his head through a line of bushes which turned out to border a rather large lake. Duelling out on the lake though…

Duelling out on the lake were none other than Kakashi of the Sharingan and Momochi Zabuza, the Demon of the Bloody Mist.

* * *

The two ninja watched each other warily from their respective positions on the lake, one with a sword, the other a kunai. A _very_ temporary and unplanned ceasefire had settled upon them; a pause in their clash that both men were unwilling to have drop their guard. The swordsman let loose a bark of derisive laughter. "Ha! The only reason you're alive, Hatake, is that the duck-butt brat over there got lucky. If his teammate hadn't accidentally deflected that kunai, you'd be fish food."

Zabuza's statement wasn't too far from truth: until just a few moments ago he had had the white-haired nin at his mercy within a water imprisonment jutsu. Zabuza had taken too long to savour his impending victory, though: the two male genin on the shore had begun launching kunai and shuriken at the sword-wielder in an attempt to force him to release their teacher. What Zabuza hadn't seen though was that the kunai that had done the deflecting hadn't come from the boys, but from a dense cluster of bushes just to their right.

"Hn, yep. They'll surprise you if you're not on your toes, that's for sure." Kakashi agreed. "I'd say that I was in a very bad way there. Good thing luck decided to let me live, eh?"

Kakashi chuckled a bit, causing ripples to form underneath his feet, before his voice became a little deeper; a little more foreboding. "But now, I'm afraid it's over for you; my eye has seen your fate."

Zabuza tensed as Kakashi slowly reached up to lift his headband; revealing a menacing red eye with three tomoe slowly rotating around a pitch-black, oversized pupil. Kakashi's visage became cold as he brought his hands together, palm to palm, before his chest. "I have seen your future: it ends with ME!"

Zabuza's hands flew together, weaving a complex seal sequence in an attempt to counter the Sharingan-user's… _Suiryuudan_? The Konoha-nin was using the_ exact_ technique that Zabuza was! Before Zabuza could process the information properly he heard "_Suiton: Suiryuudan."_

Zabuza's hands stopped their motions mid-seal. Kakashi's head was bowed, his face in shadow and his hands holding the final seal: bird. Water churned behind the white-haired man, and an immense column of water rose into the air. As thick as the length of two men the mass of liquid coiled like a serpent, then struck; as fast as a bird in flight. Zabuza had only begun to draw up his only defensive technique when he was carried bodily by the surging mass and slammed into a tree on the edge of the lake with bone-cracking force. The mist-nin stirred groggily; water that had sprayed in all directions began to either pool or run back to the lake in thousands of tiny rivulets. The Konoha jonin was walking toward the downed man across the water; his red eye still spinning slowly in its socket.

"Your eye," gasped Zabuza, "can you really see the future?"

The soon-to-be executioner had reached the shoreline. "I see that you will die in this land. Goodbye, Zabuza." Kakashi had just begun to raise a kunai when he heard a faint whistling sound. Tilting his head to the left, he was stunned to see three senbon embed themselves in the other man's neck. Zabuza's eyes widened, then he slumped to the side. Kakashi turned to see a white-masked individual standing twenty feet away.

"An excellent throw, Hunter-san."

The masked nin nodded, flashed to the downed body, then disappeared with it. Kakashi walked back to his squad, a smile evident in his eyes. The boy with the brown hair spoke first. "Sensei that was awesome! How did you- hey, are you hurt?"

Kakashi had stumbled, then collapsed on the lakeshore. Before his students or the old man they were protecting could move to aid him, a stranger in a white hood burst out of the canopy of a tree and appeared to check the man's vitals. The three genin prepared themselves to fight once more.

* * *

Naruto rose and turned to his former classmates. He smiled. "No worries guys, he's alright."

His grin grew wider as he saw Sakura's jaw hang in surprise. He decided to be cheeky. "What, did I miss something?"


	6. The Awakening at Wave

_AN: Hey guys and gals. I'm truly sorry it takes so long between chapters, it's just that I don't like to publish unless I feel that it is as best I can make it. And I'm sure some of you have experienced the 'writer's surge,' that first flood of creativity that drives you to write; and then it fades, and so productivity slackens. I had another surge this past weekend so, here you are. I will try to write more often, but no promises. I am what I am. And kudos to those authors that have complete multi-chapter length stories, huh? Onward!_

* * *

The remaining trek to Tazuna's house had been relatively quiet. After Naruto had checked Kakashi to make sure that the man was only chakra-depleted, he had created a few shadow clones to carry him. While the clones were foraging in the brush for materials to make a litter for the cyclopean jonin, Naruto found himself in a very unpleasant situation. Explaining himself.

"What," began Sakura, "exactly, are you doing here Naruto? Did you come with backup?" Naruto reached up to rub the bridge of his nose.

"Technically… No. I'm the backup"

Sasuke frowned. "You? We were expecting chunin at least; what're we going to do with another genin like us?"

Sakura nodded her agreement and even Yoshimori seemed displeased, adding: "No offence 'Ruto, but you weren't exactly the best of the best in the academy. What was Hokage-sama thinking?"

At this Sakura started: her natural inclination to respect authority warring against her logic; Sasuke just nodded his head. Now it was Naruto's turn to frown; the blonde would take all manner of insults to himself, but no one insulted Jiji in front of him and was let slide. "I do have some skills; ones that will come in handy on this mission, I think."

"Like what?" asked the pinkette. Naruto jabbed his thumb over his shoulder to indicate a few clones lashing together their makeshift litter while another pulled the exhausted jonin's headband back down over his shut Sharingan eye.

"Like them. They're solid, they know everything I know, can do everything I can do, and I can make hundreds of them." Sasuke's eyebrows rose a bit in surprise.

"I'm also damn sneaky when I want to be. How do you think I managed to paint the Hokage Monument without getting caught until it was done, or how I ditched all o' those ninja afterwards?" This time it was Sakura's eyes that widened, her mouth slightly open.

"So, how's about we get Kakashi-san to this village before anything else unpleasant pops outta the trees?" The others nodded, satisfied for the moment.

As Naruto, Sasuke, and Yoshimori took up positions around Kakashi's litter Sakura asked Tazuna to lead them to his house. The old man quickly complied, giving directions from the middle of the troupe. After about a half hour they cleared the trees, another few minutes and Naruto was relieved to see a house emerge from the mist; their destination if the wide grin on the bridge-builder's face was anything to go by.

Naruto fell back a bit as the usually-drunk geezer double-timed it to his front door. The blonde quickly formed a hand seal to make a round dozen clones and set them to patrolling the thin woods surrounding the house. As he stepped through the front door, and his clones into the foliage, he was greeted by the sight of his first batch of doppelgangers following a pretty lady up a set of stairs with Kakashi slung between them. The rest of Team seven were sitting around a table with their gear unpacked. At least they had good mission sense. "Hey, Sasuke."

The raven-haired boy looked up from inspection of a spool of wire questioningly. "I'm gonna leave those shadow clones here while I scope out the village. There are more of them on patrol in the woods; keep an eye on the place, alright?"

Sasuke nodded slightly, obviously not liking Naruto giving instructions. Naruto gave his thanks before stepping back out into the entranceway, through the front door, and into the mist.

* * *

Naruto had covered himself with a short, ratty cloak he had found in a dank alley. His face had been altered by his _Henge no Jutsu_; blue eyes became black, whisker marks had faded, and his hair had become a greasy black. No different than many of the others shuffling through the village. He was, in effect, invisible. Inconspicuous. A blade in the crowd.

The town was dark and dirty; small, unwashed windows reflected the weak light that penetrated the mists that covered the island country for most of the year, children in ragged clothes played with sticks in the damp earth while parents kept a tired eye on their offspring. Empty stalls lined the main street, their cloth shades being worn nearly to tatters or absent entirely. Pools of filth lay in the road and alongside it: putrid puddles that, so far as Naruto could tell, were not entirely made up of water. Faint scents of dank and mildew and mould were on the air, mixed with the smells of decay, rot, and other things best left untouched.

"_**Can you smell it?"**_

Naruto started; the voice was loud, resonating. The Kyubi. _"Can I smell what?"_

"_**Fear. Misery. Anger and pettiness. Greed, jealousy. The shrouds of woe cloak this town. The air is thick with it."**_

"_You can smell those things?"_

"_**Yes."**_

Naruto pondered this for a moment, circumnavigating the town's central square as he did so. _"What does it matter?"_

The Kyubi made a sound not unlike a sigh. _**"If left unchecked this place will fester, and will spread its corruption. All of these things will burrow into those who come to this place and travel with them after they leave, seeking a new place to sink their dank roots. A new place to plunge into darkness."**_

Black eyes widened in alarm._ "No way, that's not possible! These are just emotions! They can't-"_

"_**They cannot, what? Cannot travel from person to person? Cannot stay buried for years? Cannot tear a man asunder with their force?"**_

Naruto began to argue, but the words caught in his throat. How many times had he become angry when villagers from Konoha took out their anger on him? How often had he become happy when the Old Man smiled or laughed? How many nights had he cried himself to sleep, wishing that he could just dissolve from pain and get it over with?

"…_How would I stop it from spreading?"_

A snarl echoed through Naruto's mind; not in anger but in frustration.

"_**I do not know."**_

"_What! How could you not know?"_

The beast snapped its jaws. _**"There were once humans who could lift these curses; enlightened people who went from settlement to settlement. The last was the man known as the Rikudo Sennin. I do not know how those humans defeated it."**_

Naruto blinked. _"The Sage of Six Paths?"_

"_**Even as you say. After he departed this life we, what you call tailed beasts, took it upon ourselves to cleanse these wounds before they infected the world with their evil. We could delay and weaken the shadow's grip on the land for a time by taking some of it into ourselves, or by allowing ourselves to become the focus of the peoples' ire. Our hope was that someone would rise who could permanently destroy the evil. They never did."**_

"…_How did you stop it then?" _Asked Naruto, dreading the answer.

"_**By destroying every man, woman, and child within the influence of the shadow and then keeping the humans at bay long enough to allow the plagues to dissipate."**_

Naruto didn't know how to respond to that. He could have ranted at the fox, swearing that he would never have done what it had; but the fox already knew that. He could have asked if there might have been another way to cure the disease; but he knew that the fox would hold adamantly to its choice.

The brown-haired, black-eyed boy in the short and dirty cloak took one last look down the main street. He saw a few lightly armed men enter a store, and he knew what they were doing.

He walked past the store, the sound of shattering glass reached his ears. A small alley beckoned, and so the black-haired, black-eyed boy with no name settled in to wait for his guides to finish their business inside.

* * *

Naruto returned to the house several hours after he had left in the late hours of the morning. Night was nearly arrived.

"Ahh, glad to see you returning, Naruto-san." The cyclopean jonin was reclining on his futon with a pillow under his lower back and his legs stretched out underneath. In one hand he held a pair of chopsticks with which he was eating the dinner that Tsunami, Tazuna's daughter, had made; his other hand held an orange-backed novel. Naruto would evermore envy the man's ability to hold a book and turn its pages with one hand from the moment he had entered the room. "Did you gather any new information about the town?"

Naruto nodded, looking somewhat green about the face. "Y-yea," he said, shakily, "I've found out where Gato's hiding. He stays on his ship and has about a third of his mercenaries on a nearby barge. The others are in a massive complex in the north eastern area of the island."

Kakashi narrowed his eye at the blonde ninja, though not threateningly. "What's wrong? You don't look well."

Naruto breathed deeply in an attempt to steady himself. "I-I… There was…"

The blonde breathed again, then retched. Not much more than bile spattered the hardwood floor, even then there wasn't much that was expelled. The white-haired man raised his eyebrow. "You've done this earlier today."

It was no question. Naruto nodded. "I- I followed two thugs after they shook down a local shopkeeper."

Kakashi nodded, laying his book across his lap. "They led me to the piers near the village; to the east. When they boarded that big barge, they said a phrase: 'Money talks.'"

"A passphrase, good."

"I transformed myself; short, muscled, beard, black hair. I followed them on. It was…" Naruto turned green again.

Kakashi motioned for the younger ninja to continue. "Go on; you're doing fine."

A shaky breath was taken, followed by a second. And a third. "They- on the barge, they had people- men, women, children- in, in _cages_."

The old-but-not-old man sighed. "Keep going, if you can."

"The mercs, they were- to the women; a-and the captured men were being… tortured. There was so much blood on them… And they were _laughing_. Laughing and crying at the same time."

Kakashi put away his book entirely. "Listen, Naruto-kun, there was nothing you could have done for them. Look at me."

Naruto looked up from the floor, his face fixed in a rictus of despair. "If you had tried anything to help you could have very easily died. What good would your death have done those people?"

The young man began to protest. "I could have done something! I can make-"

He was cut off. "Shadow clones, yes. But what would have happened if another ninja like Zabuza had been lurking around? He would have cut you down in an instant."

Naruto's face began to lose its green tinge to become pale. "It may not be much help, but you coming back alive, coming back to report where the camps are? That _will_ help those people. Now we can plan, we can act with more effectiveness. We can save them. But only if you get a grip on yourself. I can't have you falling apart on us."

Naruto nodded, his breathing still shaky. "Now, listen to me carefully. I want you to go downstairs, dispel those shadow clones running around outside, and tell my team that they're up for night watch on two hour shifts. Then get something to eat and go to sleep. You'll feel better in the morning."

As the door to his temporary room closed Kakashi lifted a hand to massage his forehead, his food and his book lay forgotten to the side.

* * *

The sun had risen, and Naruto with it. He had slept in one of the spare rooms on the first floor, the one he was to share with Sasuke and Yoshimori. They, along with Sakura, had been a bit upset at pulling watch duty but had complied with the orders from their sensei. After a small breakfast the quartet followed the limping form of Kakashi out to a clearing not far from the house. "Alright, I've had time to think on it. Now I want to ask you: did anything seem strange about that hunter-nin to you four?"

The genin looked between themselves, perplexed. Sasuke spoke first. "Other than that he was short, no."

"Well," began Sakura, "He seemed young. His voice sounded that way, at least."

Yoshimori just shook his head. Naruto glanced sideways at his temporary teammates though; his head cocked to the side and his eyes squinted, confused. "What guy?"

This time Yoshimori did speak, giving Naruto the same look. "What do you mean? The guy that took down Zabuza; the one with the needles and the badass mask!"

"That was a girl."

This time all four of the members of team seven gave Naruto odd looks. Yoshi's was the most entertaining; somewhere between fascinated and horrified. Sasuke recovered first. "How would you know that?"

"I walked past the place where she disappeared with Zabuza's body, and I definitely smelt a girl. So unless that eyebrow-less, chop-happy, shirtless psycho was _really_ good at crossdressing to look like a dude, that scent came off of the hunter-nin." What little could be seen of Kakashi's face seemed to turn a little green at the thought.

"Alright then, thank you for the clarification Naruto-kun. But please never conjure up the image of gender-swapping men again, alright?" Naruto nodded sheepishly.

"Good. Well, what you all seem to have missed was that hunter-nin are supposed to destroy the body on the spot before retreating."

Sakura was the first to understand. "But he, she, didn't! She took the body with her!"

Kakashi nodded as looks of dawning realization emerged on the other three's faces. "Correct. The other odd thing was that she took Zabuza down with senbon. Normally, senbon are used for traps and the like because you can pack many of them into a single space, like a pipe with an explosive note on one end; they're also good for times when you need to incapacitate an opponent because, odds are, you aren't going to kill them unless you hit just the right spot."

Sasuke's brow furrowed as he thought. "… She hit Zabuza in the neck. There aren't any organs there."

"Exactly. I think that she was an accomplice of Zabuza's and extracted him from the battlefield before I could finish the job by making us think he was dead."

Yoshimori scratched his head absent-mindedly. "So, what does that mean for us?"

"What it means, Yoshimori-kun, is that Zabuza isn't dead. So he'll be back once he recovers; and to make sure that you're all ready for when he does, you are going to be practicing an ancient technique that will hone your skills, increase your focus, and make you all around better shinobi."

Sakura smiled, Sasuke cracked a grin, and Yoshimori began doing a little happy dance on his patch of ground. Only Naruto thought to ask, "What is it?"

"Why; tree climbing of course!" The quartet immediately face faulted.

"We have to do what now?" was heard from Yoshimori, "I could've sworn you said we'd be climbing trees."

"I did. And you will. Watch." To the genin of team seven's utter bewilderment their sensei proceeded to, slowly, ascend the nearest tree with no hands and while completely perpendicular to the trunk; crutch and all.

"You see," said the jonin as he rose, "if you channel your chakra to your feet, it's harder than it sounds, you'll stick to the bark. Too much or too little and you _will_ fall off. So this helps to train your control and increase your stores of chakra at the same time." Kakashi stopped while hanging upside-down from a branch of middling height, giving that odd eye-smile of his. Three thuds heralded the arrival of three kunai in the ground before the genin.

"You three, use those kunai to mark your progress up your trees. Naruto-kun, come with me." With that the cyclopean man casually limped back down the tree and off a ways into the forest, Naruto following close behind. The duo halted once the other three genin were out of sight; though if one were to try one would hear grunts of exertion from the boys and advice from Sakura. Kakashi turned to his temporary blonde subordinate.

"So, how did you sleep last night?" The silver-haired man's head was slightly tilted, his eye attentive. Naruto shrugged.

"Well enough. No nightmares; at least not unusual ones." Kakashi nodded, unwilling to open the new can of worms his subordinate had presented while they were still in the field.

"That's good to hear. Now, all of the jonin in Konoha were briefed on your status as an individual genin, that you've been training on your own. Give me an overview on your skill set; I need to know." Naruto instantly withdrew a scroll from the interior of his jacket, unrolling it as he spoke.

"First off, I know how to do a basic storage seal. I can hide a campsite, sinking earth jutsu and the like, and I'm very good at infiltration." Kakashi nodded in agreement: while in ANBU he had not only attempted to apprehend the little hellion when he was younger after large pranks but had been a victim of several himself. The cyclopean jonin _still_ hadn't completely forgiven the boy for what was dubbed in ANBU as "The Noodle Incident."

"I can also use _Kage Bunshin, Henge, Ninpo: Buki Kyanon,_ and _Ninpo: Sekai Hoko._" An eyebrow was raised at these last two.

"_Sekai Hoko_ and_ Buki Kyanon_? Never heard of those." Naruto looked up from his scroll, grinning slyly.

"I'm not surprised. I named one and made the other."

"Oh? Do tell."

The blonde genin sat down, motioning for Kakashi to do the same. "_Ninpo: Sekai Hoko_ is the name I gave the tree and water-walking exercises. I figured it would be shorter and more to the point." This last was said while an abashed grin crept onto Naruto's face.

Kakashi chuckled. "Who knows: maybe it'll stick. What about the other one, _Ninpo: Buki Kyanon_; you said that you made it?" The elder ninja looked interested.

"Yea, I figured it out during one of my chakra control experiments. After I had figured out the leaf exercise, I wanted to try something a little harder…"

_Training ground Eighteen, Two Weeks Prior:_

Naruto sat cross-legged under a tree in training field eighteen, frowning. He had mastered holding a leaf to any point on his body using only his chakra, and had even gone an extra step by learning how to hold a leaf on every limb, his torso, every finger, and his head at the same time. The problem facing Naruto now was that there were no other control exercises before reaching the higher manipulations, which he didn't have access to. Hence the frown.

Sighing, the bewhiskered blonde began absentmindedly twirling a kunai on his finger by the ring. The gentle pulses that passed up his arm as a result were strangely relaxing, and Naruto found himself daydreaming of nothing. When he finally returned to his senses, the sun was in a slightly different position than he remembered, and his kunai was on the ground. He began to reach for it when a thought struck him: when practicing the leaf exercise he had picked up the fallen leaves using chakra. Logic dictated that it should work for a kunai as well…

_Present Day_

Naruto pointed to the five kunai and three shuriken that had become lodged in a nearby tree as his example. "I managed to pick up the kunai, then used a bit too much chakra and launched it across the field into a tree. I just sort of figured out _Buki Kyanon_ from there."

Kakashi looked on the embedded weapons with a critical eye. "How accurate is that technique?"

"I can hit a moving target from about forty feet away."

"You know this how? _Kage Bunshin_?"

"Nope. Squirrels and birds." At this the jonin blinked: not many genin could hit such an agile target from so far. He smiled.

"Well done Naruto. Now, have you discovered the secret to _Kage Bunshin_ yet?" Naruto shrugged.

"_I_ never noticed anything unusual. Why, can it do something else?" Kakashi recoiled a bit at this revelation.

"Um, yea. You gain memories of the clones once they dispel, haven't you noticed?" Naruto began to shake his head before he really thought on it. When he took training days while still in Konoha, Naruto had seldom passed through the city proper and just headed straight to the training grounds. He had sent clones out to perform missions for him to earn a little more income; clones that in the course of their missions would have passed several shops and stalls, catching sight of what was on display. They had returned to Naruto and given summaries of their missions so that he could write up the mission reports, after which the clones had dispelled. After turning in the reports, he had gone on to make purchases at shops that were having one-day flash sales: shops that _he_ hadn't seen previously that day…

Naruto's eyes widened. "Damn."

Kakashi grinned through his mask. "Yea, damn. But think further: this presents an opportunity for you." Naruto cocked his head to the side.

"How?" Kakashi performed another 'eye-only, through-the-mask smile.' Another talent to be envious of.

"You learn as your clones learn. While this makes the technique ideal for gathering information, if one has enough chakra it can also be used to speed up training." Naruto's eyes widened. "You can't do, say, a year's worth of training in a day: that's insane. But it can speed the process of learning up and the more clones you use the better the results. As they practice they will, of course, make mistakes. But each one might make a slightly different mistake, or happen upon the right way to go about the subject. It's just like a great man once said: 'One must make one thousand missteps-'"

"'- before one advances a single pace towards enlightenment.'" Naruto finished the old adage. "Hokage-jiji is fond of that one."

"So you understand then? The clones will let you make all of your mistakes, only faster."

Naruto began to get excited, a vulpine grin spread across his face. "So, what can I use this newfound knowledge toward?"

Kakashi scratched at his chin for a moment while his other hand reached towards one of the scrolls on his chest. "Well," he said, sliding out a scroll with a blue trim, "I suppose if you were to find a scroll on basic water manipulation, you might use it on that…"

He handed the roll of paper over to Naruto, the latter practically vibrating with anticipation.

"Think about it: if we were to have someone on our team, who wasn't me, able to take care of pesky things like that _Kirigakure no Jutsu_ and be able to contribute to multiple fights all at the same time, well, we would have that much more of an edge wouldn't we?"

Naruto had unfurled the first portions of the scroll, his grin was threatening to become infectious. In a blur of limbs the younger nin was careening towards the sounds of a nearby river. Kakashi scratched his head in thought, before remarking to no one:

"I mean, hypothetically."

808080808

The glade had suffered no damage for quite a long time, if ever. That would be the assessment of any common man or woman who was asked to describe the state of wreckage of the spot where one blonde ninja had been training for the past three days. If one were to have watched the young man for that entire span, it would be simple to see why: he had done nothing destructive. He mostly sat and played with the water in a nearby river alongside several duplicates who sat along the riverbank; occasionally drying his hands and reading over a scroll that was never outside of his reach.

The passage that was almost always visible though read thus:

_The key to mastering water is to become water itself. To be able to move within a body of water and make no ripples, leave no wake, and disturb not the bed. The exercise to demonstrate this is simple: place your four fingers up to the beginning of your palm into a body of water, and let it make no ripples upon entry, exit, or while moving within the water._

Naruto and his clones had been diligently attempting to complete this simple instruction for the better of three days. It was only in the last hour that one of the clones had made a startling advance. They had all been using chakra to cheat the natural order of things, as any ninja technique would, but none had been paying attention to the chakra itself. The clone had, quite by accident through a lapse in focus, been able to cease making any disturbance for at least five minutes whilst staring into space, not realising its breakthrough, until it had noticed some twenty odd other clones and the original staring at its hand.

It and its brethren had been summarily dispersed, and the original had taken a moment to let the knowledge assimilate before attempting the exercise alone for the first time in nearly seventy-two hours. His hand made ripples as he moved it into the current.

808080808

"Kakashi-sensei, why are you laughing?" The jonin looked up from his book and his dinner to find Sakura trying to read from his side. The orange-backed piece of literature quickly vanished as he backpedalled into a wall.

"Why- nothing! No reason, just thinking that Naruto-kun must really be struggling with his training right about now." Sakura gave him a quizzical expression.

"How do you know?"

From the direction that Naruto had set off in for the past few days a long and loud curse drifted in through the open window. Kakashi grinned at the sheer perfection of his luck.

"Oh, just a feeling."

* * *

Naruto lay on the ground, exhausted. The water manipulation exercise had finally, after five days, frustrated him to the point of breaking. That had been over thirty minutes ago. The sun was setting and so cast an orange light on the several kunai and shuriken that had found their way into the bark of several nearby trees. It also illuminated the holes left by several hundred more shadow kunai and shuriken that had since dissipated. A lone figure watched the young nin resting from the edge of the small clearing, curious as to why he was alone. The figure moved closer, stepping lightly. A branch cracked underfoot. Naruto's eyes opened as he turned his head.

"Ohayo, biki-san. What brings you out here?"

The girl blushed at the praise before stepping fully into view. Her skin was pale, pleasantly so, and her hair was as black as a moonless night; though her eyes were brown, like chocolate. She wore a pink kimono with a simple white obi, formed from what looked like a much wider sash that had been folded many times. A small wicker basket rested in her arms, different herbs were visible when she knelt to answer.

"Errands; someone I know is injured and there are many plants here that will help them heal. What about you?" The blonde had sat up to face the newcomer, kneeling as she was.

"I'm just trying to do an exercise that my teacher left me. It's… not going well." He laughed. "I think I might have taken out my frustration on these poor trees."

The girl looked up and around as he gestured and visibly started when she registered the innumerable holes in the bark all around her. "Oh, my! So did whatever you're doing do this ninja-san?"

The blonde laughed again. "No, that was just me letting off steam. C'mere." He walked to the stream and sat.

"This is what I was attempting." She watched as he dipped his hand into the water, but no ripples formed downstream. It only held for a moment, though, and then things resumed their natural course. He pulled out his hand and sighed.

"I've been trying to not make any ripples at all, but so fat I can only do _that_," he waved his arm at the river, "and that isn't good enough. I just can't see how it's done!"

He groaned and pressed the heels of his hands into his brow. She smiled. "Maybe it'll help to get your mind off of it; maybe you can help me?"

He looked out from under his palms as she held up an innocent-looking cutting. "What's that?"

"It's an herb that helps to close wounds on the skin and prevent infection. I need about four more: that ought to make enough for tomorrow and the day after." The whiskered ninja held out his hand. When she gave the herb to him it was inspected thoroughly, then he took a long and deep inhale through his nose. He sneezed. She giggled, then the two scoured the clearing; they had found enough in about an hour of careful searching. As she left, the blonde called out: "Hold on!"

She turned, a question in her eyes. He bowed his head. "I'm Naruto. It was nice to meet you, biki-san."

She smiled. "And it was very nice to meet you as well. I am Haku. Naruto-san?" he turned back from his attempted exit after Haku gave her name.

"Yes?" She bit her lip.

"Your problem with the water, maybe you shouldn't be able to see how it should be done?" His jaw slackened in confusion before Haku disappeared into the surrounding foliage. Retightening his jaw, Naruto sat on the riverbank once more and began to think on her words.

* * *

It was a tired but satisfied Naruto that entered Tazuna's abode the next day. He sat down at the table with the members of Kakashi's team for lunch and began eating after giving a quiet 'thank you' to Tsunami. Kakashi eyed the younger nin over his reading material. "So… Anything interesting happen, Naruto?"

The blonde set down his empty bowl, surprising all present, and then poured the water from his mug into the vessel. With deliberate slowness he placed one finger into the liquid and then began to move it clockwise. No ripples formed, no small whirlpool manifested. Sasuke's eyes widened even as Sakura and Yoshimori began to look more and more confused. Their teacher just smiled. "Well done, Naruto. And did you practice the cancellation jutsu that I wrote into the scroll?"

Sasuke glanced between the two, but stayed silent. Naruto nodded wearily. "Yea, but I can't test it; not without someone actually using the hiding mist technique. So I guess we'll see if I can do it in two days, won't we?"

The white-haired man frowned. "Did you do some recon, or-"

"No," interrupted Naruto, "I ran into that hunter-nin in the woods yesterday. She was gathering herbs that can promote the healing of skin; she also said that she only needed enough for today and tomorrow."

"How did you know it was her?" Naruto turned to look at Yoshimori.

"She had a similar smell to what I scented a week ago. But," and here he turned to Kakashi, "She also gave me advice on how to complete that basic exercise from the scroll. Only a ninja, a water-trained ninja could have helped with that."

Kakashi nodded in agreement, somewhat perturbed. "So, we have two days… Naruto, I want clones around this house around the clock. You three," he turned to his team, "make sure that your kits are fit for combat. Zabuza is known to be an impatient man, he's likely to attack as soon as he can."

The older nin unrolled a map of the village and the bridge that Tazuna had given him. He pointed to the build site. "We'll want to fight Zabuza and his reinforcements here. I've fought ninja from the hidden mist before and trust me: the last thing you want to do is engage them in a confined space, like this house. We'll take Tazuna to the bridge, as normal, then wait for the ambush. Naruto, you leave clones here to protect the family; just in case."

The younger nin all nodded, then Naruto spoke up. "Sir, I do have one objection. Tazuna's presence."

"What do you suggest as bait then?"

Naruto smiled. "Why bait, of course."

808080808

Several men were scattered over the build site, the last of those who still dared to come every day to see that the bridge was completed. They were fewer every week. Tazuna was barking orders as he usually did, ensuring that what little labour he had at his disposal was used as efficiently as possible without being cruel. Around the old man were three of the ninja assigned to guard him, their sensei and the blonde reinforcement had taken up position at the start of the bridge: they obviously hoped to stop any threat that might mount an attempt on the bridge builder's life. Zabuza smirked from the waters below.

"_Leave it to soft Leaf-nin to forget that the enemy are ninja too."_

The nukenin slowly ascended one of the support pillars, ensuring that he was as close as possible before executing his jutsu. With a few handsigns and a pulse of chakra, a thick mist began to form. Everything became obscured in white. Zabuza lifted himself onto the bridge and darted towards Tazuna and his guards. The motions were swift and fluid, and no sound heralded his approach.

The masked nin landed in the middle of the defensive formation and, with one mighty swing, beheaded every one of the four.

They fell to the ground, then burst into smoke.

The mist began to fade, Zabuza began to make out his new situation. Five nin hemmed him in to the side of the bridge, two genin on either side of Hatake. Off towards the end of the bridge a copy of the blonde one was holding a hand seal, dispelling the mists.

"Surrender, Zabuza. You are outnumbered." Hatake's voice was cold, no room for negotiation.

"Hnnn. I think not." That was all the warning Naruto and Sasuke had before they were slammed by the flat of a giant blade and sent careening towards Naruto's doppelganger. A bellow of "Deal with them," followed, accompanied by the clashing of metal.

-===o=

Naruto hit the ground, hard. Next to him, Sasuke was cradling his arm; the raven haired boy struggled to stand by using only his legs. Naruto leapt up, ignoring the pops and creaks that he made when his joints protested, and placed his back to Sasuke's. "What're you-"

"Zabuza called for that hunter nin to deal with us. Be ready." Sasuke quieted; Naruto could almost hear him glancing out towards the forest. Naruto noticed that his clone had been dispersed, and all was silent. Neither of them expected the water that had gathered on top of the bridge to suddenly spring up into sheets of smooth ice; nor for the air to become suddenly, preternaturally cold. The ice sheets rose into the air, forming a semi-enclosed dome. A figure appeared in all of the sheets, one wearing the garb of a mist hunter nin.

"Haku-san."

The nin and her reflections pulled out several senbon. "Hello again, Naruto-san. I promise to make this as painless as possible."

Naruto's eyes widened as she drew her arm back. He strained against his muscles, willing himself to spin, flaring his arms out, shoving Sasuke away. Then he chambered a kick and let the Uchiha have the full brunt of it squarely in his posterior. The boy flew through the air, in between two of the ice mirrors and landed on his head. That was the last thing Naruto saw before his world exploded into pain.

808080808

Kakashi inhaled greedily, the last exchange of blows with Zabuza had opened a gash on the cyclopean man's chest. Even with his Sharingan exposed, he was having trouble anticipating the mist-nin's attacks: a fair amount of mist had remained before Naruto's clone had been destroyed, and it had been thickening ever since. The leaf jonin glanced to his right seeing Naruto in an icy prison and Sasuke on the ground, unmoving. He flicked his eyes back and forth, waiting for Zabuza's next strike.

"Sakura, Yoshi!" He heard his students jump at his bark.

"Take Sasuke back to the village, hole up with Naruto's clones. He's injured. Don't try to enter that ice dome, it's a trap."

"Oh ho ho," a sinister laugh echoed around the mist, "you have no idea, Hatake. That jutsu, not even I could withstand that."

Kakashi's genin took several shaky steps towards the end of the bridge. Kakashi barked again. "GO!"

The two leapt into motion, Kakashi heard the rush of Zabuza moving to intercept. The ninja finished the last three handsigns in the sequence he had been slowly forming during the conversation with his students. Chakra surged, there were several barks, a grunt of pain, then the sound s of chirping birds and a muted explosion.

The mists began to clear, the ice prison was still hazy but Kakashi could see his handiwork. Blood pooled at Zabuza's feet, the man was held upright by several nin dogs that Kakashi had summoned. A hole the size of Kakashi's still-smoking hand was in Zabuza's gut, his life's blood pouring out. The man would be dead within minutes. "Heh, finally got me. What gave me away?"

"My blood. These dogs know my scent anywhere. And I know theirs."

Any further words of Kakashi's were cut short as an old feeling welled up within him: fear. Primordial fear: the kind of all consuming terror that one never forgets, that one wishes not on their worst enemy.

A slow clapping was heard from the ocean side of the bridge.

Meanwhile…

Naruto's head spun as he sought an exit from the dome of ice. After pulling his little stunt, punting Sasuke out of harm's way, he didn't have high hopes that the ice-wielder would give him the opportunity to escape as well. His body was pierced in several places by ice needles, moving was, itself, and exquisitely painful ordeal. He watched as Haku readied another batch of needles to end him, or was it a reflection? He closed his eyes.

A sudden terror gripped him, as though the blonde could sense an endless void opening up to swallow his being whole even from behind his eyelids. Vast, unknowable; Naruto felt its approach and, in a panic, reached for any way to escape the cold fear of what might lie beyond that shroud.

He must have reached too deeply.

A power unlike anything Naruto had ever experienced flooded his form, changing him. He felt lighter; and at the same time he felt more massive: a comfortable weight pressed his feet into the bridge. Several sickening cracks shot through the air: joints and ligaments shifting slightly. Nails became claws, teeth sharpened and elongated, his spine popped and shifted as he hunched over to become more comfortable on all fours. An aura of crimson and orange energy enveloped him. Naruto looked at his hand, flexing it, marvelling at how the tendons slid smoothly under his skin.

Then he felt it.

An urge, a drive. The desire to rend flesh and break bones filled his mind, a haze dropped over his mind; all of his instincts told him to seek out someone, anyone, so that he could sate his bloodlust. His head snapped up, his eyes flickered to Haku, frozen in fear, her mirrors melted on the ground from exposure to his energies. He growled. But before he could take even a single step towards her, another sense opened.

He could _feel_ the dark shadows within Haku, Kakashi and the restrained Zabuza. Fear, anger, pride. But a cavernous entity made itself known to this new sense: a screaming, gaping vortex of pain and death emanating from the far side of the bridge. The mists began to clear and Naruto saw Zabuza bleeding in the grip of massive hounds, Kakashi before him, but turned to see a short man accompanied by close on three-hundred men become visible further on. The sight of the man set the changed Naruto's mind to roiling. The swirling mass of evil was lodged firmly in that short, bespectacled, _thing_. A resounding voice thundered through his haze, giving him a new purpose.

"_**Kill him! Kill him NOW!"**_

Naruto disappeared.

**\/\/\/\/\/\/**

"Hah, so the leaf ninja managed to take care of you Zabuza? Well, it's a good thing: I hadn't planned on paying-"

A wet crunch interrupted the gloating as he was crushed under a white blur. A lanky figure crouched over the man's savaged chest cavity, blood had slashed across his face and filled his mouth with the tastes of hot iron and meat. The assembled mercenaries jumped back, too startled to react.

Naruto's heart and mind were being rent in two; hundreds of voices were screaming at him from the shadows that had twisted themselves into the man's very soul. They told of the horrors he had inflicted on them for his own sick joy: how he had had women defiled, children given anguish, and men butchered, how he had often left them ungagged that he might enjoy their cries more thoroughly, how he had hired men nearly as twisted as himself to keep his victims alive longer. The voices swelled within him, bleeding with pain. It was too much: the demon container threw back his head and-

**000000**

Kakashi looked on as Naruto crouched over the dead man, Gato. For the first time in nearly fifteen years he felt fear. It was the same chakra, the very same feeling that had descended over Konohagakure as the Kyubi had attacked. Only now it was so much worse, so much more menacing.

Kakashi leapt away from the prone Zabuza as Naruto threw back his head and let loose the most unholy sound the jonin had ever heard. It was as though a thousand people were tearing their way out of Naruto's throat, shrieking and screaming; so raw was it that no human could have maintained even one of those sounds without shredding their vocal chords. This chorus of the damned continued for several more seconds: swelling, then abating.

And suddenly Naruto was everywhere.

**8*8*8**

After giving voice to the cries of the innocent, Naruto shook. His mind narrowed further: blocking out all rational thought. Only his instincts and sense of duty remained. It would not do to only let those men responsible know what they had done, they needed to feel it! A roar tore from the young man as he began to move.

**00800800800**

Kakashi had seldom seen such a battle since the last days of the Third Hidden War. Naruto was like unto a force of nature; as much a maelstrom as a man.

Swords bent as the embodiment of retribution slapped aside incoming blows. Axes shattered in his grip. A clawed hand punched through a man's chest to grasp the end of a spear; which was pulled through the new hole only to be launched, seconds later, through three men before clattering to the stone. Naruto let loose a bark and ten men dropped to the ground in front of him instantly, bleeding from every orifice on their heads. Another ten were dispatched by disembowelment. Two clawed hands suddenly clapped together and a man flattened, ten feet away, as though between two great stones.

There was a morbid grace to the slaughter, an economy of movement that wasted no opportunity. The crimson-soaked figure leapt from one group to another, brutally ending any who came within its reach; and several that didn't. Throats were torn, dismembered limbs littered the stonework, and blood had pooled into a macabre lake; the rent bodies and their parts forming gruesome islands in the red waters. Several attempted to flee but found themselves being herded back in, the blonde ninja was impossibly fast.

When it was finally over, Naruto was on all fours in the midst of the carnage. Every portion of his garb and skin was stained red. He slowly lowered himself until he knelt in the pool of men's blood, his head bowed. Kakashi inched closer as the oppressive aura faded, ever more near until he was at the other nin's shoulder. That was when he saw the shaking of the shoulders, the clear drops that fell from underneath the blonde mop. And as the young man cried, thunder clapped overhead. Rain began to pour down. Kakashi knelt, lifting one arm over his shoulder. While Kakashi tended to Naruto's few wounds, and while his tears still fell unchecked, a deep voice sounded in the young ninja's mind.

"_**Well done, young one. Well done."**_


	7. Two Unexpected Houseguests

_AN: Just to clarify, Naruto is almost fifteen in this fiction. It always surprises me that no one in cannon questions the fact that Naruto failed the genin exam twice, and so took it before his teammates, and yet is younger than most of the rookie nine. Never made sense to me. Also, the Spirits will be getting a lot more explanation in the coming chapters now that the Wave Arc is done with; and I'm gonna go a little light on the AC content. It's a seasoning, not the main course. Onward!_

* * *

Dull voices managed to thud their way through the darkness that enveloped his senses. The owner of those senses was somewhere soft, wrapped in cool material that slid under and over his bare arms and legs. He was about to drift back from his momentary awareness when a word made itself understood to his ears. Gato. Blue eyes flickered open, dazedly trying to identify his location. He was in a bed, that much was obvious, dressed in only his black boxers. The roof was wooden, old, slightly discoloured and warped. The air smelt of water and rice and alcohol.

"_Tazuna's house,"_ Naruto thought to himself, _"Great. Means I've been out for a while."_ As he got dressed from his, thankfully at hand, backpack he let the memories of his fight on the bridge float to the front of his mind. The smell of blood and the colour red were prominent. Sighing, Naruto finished checking the straps that held his throwing knives. Though most ninja eschewed them because bulkier kunai or shuriken could do the same jobs as the knives, Naruto preferred them because he could pack fifty of the double-ended blades on his person and so had a rain of metal at his fingertips. After performing a quick recheck of his kit Naruto headed downstairs, where the voices that had awoken him had come from.

Kakashi, Sakura, Sasuke, and Yoshimori were sitting around the main table in the Tazuna Household; evidently talking about what had happened on the bridge.

"We need to wait for Naruto to wake up. The Hokage sent him as our backup and so he is to be a part of the decisions. That's final." Naruto chose that moment to clear his throat. Kakashi turned around and smiled through his mask.

"Ah, you're up sooner than I expected. How's your stomach?" Naruto took the question to inquire as to how his seal was holding up.

"Fine; what's going on in here?" While Naruto had questions about the events during the fight as well, about the fox's chakra, he figured those were best left to a time when he could ask it directly and in private.

"I was informing the team that, with Zabuza and Gato dead, we should be heading home soon. Tazuna shouldn't have any trouble with the bridge now; in fact the entire village is celebrating in the square over your triumph." Kakashi smiled smugly. "I even hear they're going to call it 'The Great Naruto Bridge' in your honour."

Naruto raised his brow in surprise. "Really?"

"You better believe it, man." Yoshimori looked up from his cup of tea. "They've got it carved into one end of the bridge already."

Naruto blinked, surprised, but before he could voice his confusion at the apparent celebration Kakashi spoke up again. "And… Well, I was about to tell the team about those pesky mercenary camps north of the village."

There was a crash in the doorway leading to the kitchen; Naruto and the other ninja turned to see Tsunami holding a hand over her mouth with an overturned pot of fresh tea at her feet, slowly spreading across the floor.

* * *

Naruto and the four comprising Team Seven were standing around the dinner table sans dinner and with a map spread out along its surface, courtesy of Tazuna. Naruto had just finished marking and describing, as best he could, the locations of the two encampments he had discovered on his first day in Nami no Kuni.

"Long story short is that we've two big boats in the north harbour and some kind of garrison out here. I didn't visit the garrison, but the gist that I got from the talk on the barge was that there were more men there than on the water; most of these guys are new hires, get seasick." Naruto gestured helplessly to Kakashi. "What's the call, taichou?"

Kakashi started at the honorific, but so fleetingly that Naruto was sure that the other genin missed it. The masked jonin cradled his chin in thought. He finally asked: "How many men were on the water when you were there?"

Naruto shrugged. "Hard to say. I was only ever on the barge, not Gato's ship. I'd guess about one hundred fifty, maybe two hundred. I can say that many of the men that came to the bridge were from the water; I recognised a lot of their faces." Kakashi nodded.

"There were three hundred bodies on the bridge when I went back to clean up this morning, give or take." Sakura and Yoshimori looked a little green at the thought of so many bodies; Sasuke paled a bit but otherwise didn't react. Kakashi continued.

"In war, you only set up a proper land operation if you have need of it. That there's a garrison at all suggests that there are far more men than the barge could support for any real length of time. Most of the resistance will be there; probably."

"So, what's the plan?" Kakashi was silent for several minutes.

"Are you okay with ending a few more lives?" The question caught Naruto off-guard; no one had asked how he had felt after defeating Mizuki after the man's defection. Then again, Naruto hadn't _killed_ the chunin. Now that Naruto thought about it, the fact that he had killed didn't bother him so much as the fact that he hadn't been properly in control of himself at the time. Naruto nodded.

"I think I can handle it." Kakashi smiled at the blonde before clapping him on the shoulder and giving him a bracing shake.

"Okay. I want Sakura, Sasuke, and Yoshi to guard the village. We're going to warn the villagers that no one should be outside after dusk. You three are going to make sure that no opportunistic mercs get into the town, do whatever it takes to stop them if any show up." After receiving confirmation of his orders Kakashi pointed back toward the map.

"I'm going to take out the garrison; shouldn't be too difficult for me." He eye-smiled while holding the victory sign with his fingers.

"Naruto, you deal with the men on the boats. You've been there before; you know the general layout and how to get in already. I want you to take everyone there out, I don't really care how so long as it doesn't draw attention to yourself or make the thugs flee in every direction." Kakashi gave the blonde a pointed look that Naruto understood too well: no unleashing the Kyubi. Naruto nodded.

"Good. Your secondary objective is to poke around Gato's private boat. Find anything worth stealing and seal it into a scroll or two. Do you have any empty ones?" At Naruto's presentation of two scrolls full of empty sealing spaces and a raised eyebrow, Kakashi chuckled. "Right, sorry. Forgot.. With any luck he'll have had something valuable in there, and the thugs haven't wrecked anything too badly." Kakashi looked down over the map and clapped his hands.

"Alright, get your kits ready: we're in for a long night."

8*8*8*8

Naruto took his time heading towards the docks, passing on the ground through bushes and trees. Kakashi had determined that midnight was the time to strike and he had a few hours to set up. As he walked, careful not to trip over any roots or rocks, Naruto sent a questioning probe to the spirit sealed within him. The reply was prompt, though the beast's thoughts felt lethargic, seemingly spent from the previous day.

"_**You wish to know what occurred when you called on my powers, do you not?"**_ Naruto gave a flickering thought of confirmation.

"_**Simply put, the instincts of your flesh overpowered the teachings of your morality."**_ Naruto's brow furrowed.

"_I don't understand."_ The shinobi felt a sigh from the fox.

"_**Your body has instinct and priorities that are separate from your mind. It wants to eat, sleep, fornicate; but the most powerful of these impulses is the drive to ensure its own survival. Normal humans can suppress and control these urges fairly well for those still bound to blood and bone, but we are different; our sealing partially separated your mind and soul from your flesh. When my power flooded your body, your baser drives and motivations were brought to the fore." **_Naruto received an image of an unnatural beast, snarling through large fangs and prowling an enclosure made of red fire.

"_**It the throes of your rage, your body would have killed everything around it to ensure its own existence. I channelled that anger by granting your flesh a portion of my own awareness and motivations, resulting in the vengeance that you meted out."**_

Naruto cleared a small hillock and saw the lights of the docks ahead; he settled against a tree to wait for midnight. _"Why was my body so fixated on killing instead of running?"_

There was a deep silence in the blonde's mind, the fox began to drift back into slumber. Just before its consciousness faded, it answered. _**"Because that is the way of humans."**_

**8*8*8*8**

A black-haired muscled man made a show of shoving others out of his path towards the travel barge that had become a sort of bunk-boat for both himself and his compatriots. Wood creaked under his feet and cries of dismay were heard as the brute helped himself to any exposed food or drink, to the detriment of the original owners. A captured and loosely bound wench was torn from the fumbling grasps of a drunken mercenary and thrown over a shoulder before he descended into the bowels of the ship. The Bear, as he was called, had taken a large storage space at the bottom fore as his own personal space; furnished sparsely though it was with only a mattress and two boxes, the room stank of his scent. The Bear placed the woman on the thin mattress before pulling at his shirt. Halfway through, with his head still covered, the Bear collapsed with a sigh. Standing just behind where his target had stood was a ninja. Tall and in black, his blue eyes the only thing uncovered.

The woman opened her mouth to scream, but found a hand pressed to her lips; stifling her cries. A low voice came to her. "When you hear no more movement, wait another hour before leaving. Stay in this room and you will not be harmed."

Her lungs burned from the lack of oxygen. She nodded once, desperate for air. When the hand had been removed from her mouth, when she had finally looked up from her deep gasping breaths, he was gone.

* * *

Naruto moved from shadowed corner to corner on the lower decks, killing the drunk or sleeping men room by room with an uncanny silence and speed. He noted that several compartments held multiple bunks but had only one, if any, occupant. Rationalising that the missing men had either been on the bridge or moved into the now vacant merchant ship nearby, Naruto pressed on.

The ship had three levels: the hold, the quarterdeck, and the main deck. The hold he had cleared: it had only been two sections with the one bear of a man. The quarterdeck had been more challenging, but not unduly so. The main deck, though, was exposed to any watchful eyes on the shore or the other ship; he didn't relish the thought of being caught by several dozen men in a brawl. Naruto exited the ship through the smoke pipe in the kitchen. He emerged slowly, casting his eyes about for any sign of movement.

There was none. The campfires had been extinguished, and no one was moving to relight them. Several uneven lumps were scattered around the main deck and the docks: still bodies, unbreathing. Naruto pulled himself along the side of the ship, as a large spider might, and pulled himself up to inspect one of the bodies. He nearly missed them. Two small holes were in the man's neck, slightly colder than the surrounding air. It was the same for the second man he checked.

Naruto pulled out a longer-than-normal kunai and palmed a throwing knife. The gangplank groaned as he stepped down slowly, avoiding the bodies laying about. The only lights from the surrounding area were drawing the blonde ninja like a moth to flame: Gato's own ship still possessed lit windows. More guards, dead. Naruto stepped down into the quarterdeck slowly, silence pressing in on his ears before a slight *thump* from below grabbed his attention. Naruto slid to the staircase and cautiously descended. Four men were on the floor, two captive women as well. Naruto checked their pulses alive; but unconscious. The women that was; the men were quite as dead as their companions above. Like the other ship, this hold was divided into two sections. A door beckoned.

Naruto heeded its call, opening the door slowly, thanking the gods that it didn't squeak. A slim figure in a familiar blue-green kimono stood facing the body of a man she had obviously just killed.

Haku turned and smiled, wearing no mask. "Naruto-sama; I have been expecting you."

Naruto did not loosen his grip on his weapons; even if the unexpected respect caught him by surprise. "Oh?"

"I followed you here, I saw that you might require aid." Naruto still stood motionless, at the ready, but coked his head slightly to the side.

"And why would you help me?" The young woman's smile did not falter, her hands did not shake, here eyes showed no deception.

"Because before he passed, Zabuza-sama asked me to follow you instead of following him into yomi."

**Flashback**

_The sounds of slaughter were in the air. Shouting and the clanging of metal, the pitter-patter of blood hitting stone, the snapping of bone and the squelching of meat. Haku had retreated to her master's side once the empowered blonde had begun his rampage, pulling the giant cleaver closer to its owner. She muttered under her breath, half-sobbing: "Gomenasai, Zabuza-sama. I've failed you, I failed to protect you, I'm sorry. I'm sorry."_

_She rocked back and forth, cold tears streamed down her face as she apologised again and again to the one who had pulled her out of the gutters and given her a true life. Zabuza groaned when she grasped his half-mangled wrist. She gasped and broke a shaky smile. "Zabuza-sama! You're alive! Let me-"_

_Before she could begin to move, the mist nin began to cough blood; staining his chin and neck. He chuckled hoarsely. "No, don't bother. I'm dead; my soul just hasn't been collected yet."_

_The fearsome man let his head fall sideways to watch the Konoha genin leap from one victim to the next, always moving, slashing, crushing. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" Haku said nothing, silently disagreeing._

_"Hah," he winced, "you're too young to understand. He's magnificent. Able to call up all of the primal urges, all of our rage and wrath that is our legacy as humans, and then guide it! Hah!" More coughs wracked his frame. "You don't even feel his bloodlust anymore, do you Haku?"_

_She blinked then realised that, indeed, the foul and oppressive aura had nearly disappeared. "How could someone control so much malice, so much fear?"_

_She had been travelling with Zabuza for ten years, since she had been five, and in all of that time she had never felt her master exert such control over the power of fear. It had either been there, or not, and no one person was ever spared, _could_ be spared, unless they were far, far away. Zabuza shuddered as he resisted the urge to expectorate even more._

_"Any, anyone who can wield that kind of power without descending into madness, without turning on their comrades, that person would be one… one of a kind." Haku looked down as her master's voice began to grow fainter._

_"Haku, follow that ninja. Protect him, because one day he will be great and being as, *cough,* as he is now he'll protect you forever." The nuke nin's eyes began to cloud over. The slaughter had finished, the perpetrator knelt and gazed at the sky as it began to rain down, as though to wash the young warrior of the blood covering his body._

_"I can feel his strength. Give him… give him my sword. Follow him. Anyone that favoured by the gods, they will lead you to happiness." Zabuza let out a final sigh before his arm went slack and his neck loosened; a small smile on his face as his eyes closed. Haku sobbed once before she reached out to where she had dragged the giant blade, grasped it, then disappeared over the edge of the bridge._

End Flashback!

Naruto stood, mouth agape under his mask, dumbfounded; whenever he thought back on the few moments he had been overtaken by the power of the Kyubi, never had he even considered that he could have appeared in anything but a negative light. Now, amidst the bodies of mercenaries that had been killed to aid him and facing the open face of the girl, Naruto wasn't so sure. He lowered the knives. "Well, if you feel that way… come on then."

Haku beamed and nodded. "My taichou told me to kill everyone aboard and steal anything of value Gato had here. His cabin's aft?"

Another nod. "Alright then."

The duo crept back up to the main deck and made their way toward the back of the ship where the entrance to a two-deck captain's cabin awaited. Within a few moments Naruto had picked the lock and the two entered a luxurious receiving room; complete with fixed tables and cabinets of high quality. Brass candelabras and illuminated screens lit the room. Naruto inspected each of the minor paintings on the walls while Haku investigated a large desk just before the large aft window.

"Nothing."

"I've found nothing here save a few letters, Naruto-sama." The blonde ninja sealed away the letters, shaking off the novelty of someone referring to him as 'sama.'

"Below then." Down a small flight of steps lay the bedroom of the late Gato, complete with bed, wardrobe, and large hairy mercenary passed out drunk on the floor. Naruto wrinkled his nose at the man's smell before severing his spine. Haku had begun testing the wardrobe, searching for false panels or compartments. Naruto checked under the bed and found a small safe about thirty centimetres high and twice that wide. Grinning, the blonde latched onto the safe with chakra and pulled mightily. He nearly dislocated his arm for the trouble. Scowling, he flipped the mattress off of its frame and waved Haku over; they looked down on the door, only a small keyhole was visible. Naruto swore.

"Damn! That thing's too small for my lockpicks and I can't seal it away for later: too big." Haku tilted her head, a small frown on her face. She knelt before the safe and extended a hand. As Naruto watched water began to condense on her hand and flow toward the tip of her index finger, which she then placed over the keyhole. She waited a moment before twisting her hand ninety degrees, producing a small *click.* Haku smiled before stepping back and bowing respectfully. Naruto looked between the safe and his ally with raised eyebrows.

"Well, that's useful." Haku just smiled at the praise. Naruto shrugged before opening the safe. Upon doing so, he was nearly in danger of suffocating because the sight of gold and silver bars was enough to steal his breath; behind him, Haku gasped. Naruto stayed there a few moments more before shaking his head violently and retrieving one of his scrolls. A few deft movements and the precious metals were safely sealed away.

"I think that counts as 'everything valuable,' don't you?" Haku nodded. The pair emerged from the ship to the light of the moon, three-quarters full. Naruto's head began to buzz and he could have sworn that a soft pipe was being played; the disturbance ended in the next few moments. Naruto shook his head to clear it. Seeing the bodies of thugs arrayed over the docks the blonde had to ask: "Did you kill all of them?"

"Yes, Naruto-sama." The pale girl followed her statement with a slight pout, as though to ask if she had done something wrong. Naruto sighed.

"It's alright. I just need to find some way to get rid of the bodies." The blonde ninja formed a seal with his fingers before Haku could apologise, creating a veritable army of clones; at least two for each slain man. The doppelgangers immediately went to work: those who had manifested on Gato's ship went inside to retrieve the bodies of the dead men and sleeping women, the others began piling the rest of the corpses after rifling through clothes for anything valuable. Haku stared with wide eyes at the mass of clones and Naruto chuckled.

"C'mon. We've some ground to cover and some explaining to do to my taichou. Ought to be interesting."

* * *

It took several tense minutes of discussion and questioning, but Kakashi had eventually consented to allowing Haku to return to Konoha with Naruto "…so long as proper immigratory kekkei genkai procedures," were followed. That morning the jonin had explained what to expect upon return to the village as he wrote out a missive for the Hokage.

"When you arrive at the gates, let the guards know that you have a new blood limit for the Hokage. ANBU will arrive to escort you to one of the larger secure rooms in HQ to await the Hokage's attention; technically you could be made to wait there for months, but considering that this will be the first new bloodline in a very long time I wouldn't worry about that." Kakashi drew an odd symbol on the bottom right corner of the scroll, a circle made of two intertwining curved lines, and sealed it before handing the roll of paper to Naruto.

"Once the Hokage and the Head of Interrogation arrive they'll debrief you both, and then the issue will be brought before the City Counsel. They'll vote on whether to adopt you," he pointed to Haku, "into the village; if they accept you, there'll be quibbling as to who takes charge of you since you will be coming with no clan and no money." Haku stiffened, and Kakashi sighed.

"Because these laws haven't been altered since the village was formed there are certain things that can be done so that you have some say in the outcome." He raised a questioning eyebrow and Haku nodded; the blonde, however, looked a little unsettled at the prospect of facing down the Council. Kakashi chuckled.

"Alright then, here's what you'd need to do…"

**8*8*8*8**

Naruto made his farewells to Tazuna and his family the next morning, and laughed along with the old man as Inari declared that he wanted to become a ninja one day. He also gave a temporary goodbye to the other genin, offering a free meal on him once they returned; he was also assured by Kakashi that the jonin would fill in his students on Haku's political situation once Team Seven had left Nami no Kuni.

A few miles outside the village, Haku had met up with Naruto had asked that the pair detour from the road. The forest in the are was lush and green but the ground was wet, almost a bog. He followed the ice-wielder to a small campsite on a spit of dry land, little more than a fire pit with two bedrolls beside it. Zabuza's sword, Kubikiribocho, the Great Cleaving Blade, was leant against a nearby tree; gleaming in the dappled light of the small grove. Naruto grasped the hilt and lifted the blade above his head, admiring the edges of the mighty weapon. _"Huh, I thought it would be heavier."_

When Naruto voiced his thought to his companion she replied, "Zabuza-sama said that the blade would always be light to those who cannot use it properly."

Naruto frowned. Pulling his arm back, he tried to cut into the trunk of the tree that had served as the sword's stand. The blade barely sank into the bark, little more than the width of a kunai: without any weight behind it, the blade was nearly useless for breaking through armour of any kind, let alone blocking a heavy stroke from an enemy. Naruto sighed before settling into the lotus position and tying a strap through and around the blade. "Well, that just gives me one more thing to learn."

Once the blade had been firmly attached to the blonde nin's back, it had taken only a day's travel to arrive at the great gates of Konoha. Naruto cut quite the imposing figure, dressed all in black and with a large sword in tow, the sunset at his back; this was evident on the gate guards' faces when Naruto handed over the scroll requesting an audience with the Hokage. Within minutes most of Kakashi's assertions had proven true and the pair, Haku and Naruto, found themselves within a plain room with four chairs and a table; though the cyclopean jonin had been wrong about one thing: the Hokage apparently had given this matter his full attention, he had been waiting for them.

Hiruzen looked out from under his large red-and-white hat and smiled. "Naruto-kun, I was happy to hear about your return. Though I must admit that I am a bit surprised that you brought my attention to your arrival by announcing a new bloodline that wishes to join the village. Hello, young lady."

Haku bowed deeply at the waist as the aged man inclined his head. "Take a seat, the both of you. I'm sure that you have quite the story to tell. Naruto, why don't we start with your mission debriefing, hmm? Start once you left the Demon Brothers to Kotetsu and Izumo."

8*8*8*8

_One Day Later..._

Naruto fidgeted nervously, tugging at the ends of his sleeves and endlessly adjusting his weapons pouches; Haku stood as his left and a pace behind him awaiting, as was he, the summons from the Council.

The Hokage had gone in a half hour before to introduce the situation to the Councilmen and the information gleaned from the interrogation process. _"Speaking of which…"_

"Haku, does your head still hurt?" The slightly younger girl shook her head.

"It won't be a problem, Naruto-sama." The blonde frowned: that was not what he had asked. At his expression Haku lowered her head, a bit demurely, and said: "Yes, but not so much as an hour ago. And I expect that I will feel better still in another hour." Naruto smiled. A man with long blonde hair by the name of Inoichi had been present during the debriefing and had verified Haku's claims by means of entering her mind and examining her memories; and while he claimed that his intent was not to cause harm, Haku had been left with a very strong migraine afterwards. Any further conversation was cut off when the massive doors to the council chambers opened, beckoning the pair inside.

The Council Chambers were massive, with a ceiling over thirty feet high and a wide, amphitheatre seating with curved benches that faced the Hokage's seat. A low table stood to the Hokage's left and an aide took down the minutes of each meeting; several of the clan heads and the more wealthy merchants likewise had a scribe at their sides. As previously instructed Naruto and Haku stood to the Fire Shadow's right, maintaining a respectable distance, and awaited acknowledgment of their presence. A tall, pale man with dark hair and pale eyes was the first to do so.

"Hokage-sama, The Hyuga Clan respectfully asks as to why these two been brought before us? Surely we have the information we need to construct offers of citizenship for the young woman in question?" The Hyuga bowed his head toward Haku, so as not to be rude. The Hokage smiled before pulling a sheaf of paper toward himself and glancing over it.

"It seems that the ninja who has brought us this new bloodline, Uzumaki Naruto, has requested that she become his charge, as is his right by our laws." A flurry of whispers rose up at this; several merchants and not a few clans began skimming through documents at their places, looking for the basis of the claim. Hiruzen continued.

"By those laws all that is needed is the willingness of the nin and the prospective ward, an adequate financial standing, and the backing of two shinobi members of this council. Uzumaki-kun?"

Naruto stepped forward. "Honourable council; My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I submit, for your wise review, an assessment of my finances and holdings as well as a transcript of my debriefing with Hokage-sama, which occurred last night."

The blonde nin made several shadow clones, each one carrying a copy of the documents, and each delivered theirs to a separate councilmember and waited to be questioned. From Naruto's perspective, watching as some conversed with his doppelgangers and others simply read the file, the members were rather surprised at this rather unorthodox means of conversation. Naruto handed the only true copy of the reports to the Hokage.

After a half hour of deliberation, during which many of the clones were dismissed by the various councilmembers, four people stood. A man with dark hair and glasses, a tall man with his hair in a pineapple-like hairstyle, the Hyuga, and Inoichi Yamanaka. Inoichi spoke first. "While I am unable to cast my vote for Uzumaki-san, I wish to show my support."

The tall man nodded to Inoichi. "The Nara Clan recognises Yamanaka-san's support and casts its vote behind Uzumaki-san."

"The Aburame Clan would also like to vote in favour of Uzumaki-san." The Hyuga spoke last.

"Honourable Hokage, the Hyuga Clan support's Uzumaki-san's claim. I believe that three supporting clans is sufficient?" Hiruzen nodded and applied his seal to a document before him.

"Indeed it does, Hiashi-san. Let it be known, then, that Mmomochi Haku is now the ward of Uzumaki Naruto and he possesses all of the responsibilities and obligations that such an arrangement entails. Our business is concluded."

8*8*8*8*8

Later that day Naruto used some of his savings to move Haku and himself into a larger apartment. The move itself didn't take very long, Naruto not having much to begin with, but afterward he had insisted that they purchase more clothing for Haku; the only sets she owned were her battle-garb and two short pink kimono. After having discovered that, yes, Haku did have the same love of shopping that all females did, even if it was muted somewhat, Naruto flopped into his new bed with a distinct sense of exhaustion and a craving for sleep.

Which explains why he was, understandably, less than pleased to hear a voice crop up in his mind.

"_**Young one. There has been an… unforeseen matter that has come to hand."**_ Naruto groaned into his pillow before giving the fox his full attention; anything that had it worried was cause for close attention.

"_What is it?"_ Naruto's heart nearly stopped at the answer.

"'_It' is __me__, you little brat, and I want to know why in yomi I'm staring a giant fox in the eye while standing in a kami-forsaken __sewer__!"_

"_Zabuza!?"_


End file.
